The Guardian Who Came in from the Cold
by Mauser-KAR98K
Summary: The Chronicles of Aleutian. A continuation if Knuckles had a full brother. Aleutian's painful depression has his father seeking to mend their fragile relationship after 16 years of running away. All the while Snively has something up his sleeves. Vio,gore
1. Echoes of Autumn

**Attention:** editied version. 

Hello, and welcome to book two. The prologue was short so I added it with chapter one. I am kicking this one up a notch which means more emptions, sex, and violence, but I will be putting funnier moments in this as well. The title of this is taken from a book called, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John LeCarre'. If none of you all don't know who he is, just check out, "The Constant Gardner."

This one is already looking better than the first, and I am constantly editing it as I go along. I'm satisfied with this one thus far, so give me feed back...lots of: tell me where I need to improve, tell me if I am too descriptive and how I can solve that problem. The story that I have in my head is sad, but I want to glue readers to it to tell it.

Disclaimer: I acknowledge the Sega Characters to their original creators and also the characters of the comics and SATam to their aurthors, and they are not my own.

So now we take a look briefly at Aleutian's past...one in which he wants to forget. As I go along in this when I come to his moments in this saga, I can't help but feel what I am doing to him is wrong. But this story and way I see it can happen with the current ways of the comic and all, is sad in how I can see in bring out this character and this "what if" thing. So as I take my leave to the readers, all I can say is this from the bottom of my heart...

"I'm sorry, Aleutian. I truley am."

* * *

**The Guardian Who Came in from the Cold**

**by: Mauser **

"I hurt myself today...to see if I still feel," –Johnny Cash

**Prologue:**

* * *

**The Day of Fury:**

The cozy living room was briefly illuminated when a bolt of lightning showered its mythical white light over the scattered decor. Light from a table lamp filtered through the cracks of a lone door to the room, casting just enough glow to show the back of a white sofa. With the lightning came the wind and the rain, assaulting the small house that seemed naked in the middle of the woods.

Darien happened to be a rather short Overlander-- being five foot, eight inches, but he could tower over the average Mobian. However, that was if he wasn't at the mercy of one. His eyes never left the gapping hole of the barrel he was staring hard into, casting the full weight of his emotions to the dark figure that held as he tightened the ball he consumed himself in. With the pass of another flicker of lightning, he could see the fresh scars of a very enraged echidna under a large brimmed hat, wanting to kill the world.

And Darien happened to be next on his list.

"Why Aleutian? You think my death will solve anything!?" he cried as he desperately plead for his life.

"YOU COULD HAVE SAVED HER!" Aleutian bellowed out at him, his black coat still dripping from the foul precipitation of the chaotic day. "Instead you ran like the rest of the traitors!"

"But I didn't take the money. I left 'cause I knew what was going to happen, and I was afraid for my life."

"But you didn't tell me or my Emi-La! WHY!" the raving echidna demanded.

Darien just lowered his head down over his knees, encrusting himself more into a ball within his muscular arms, ready to accept the punishment that he didn't deserve. "I'm sorry Aleutian," he whimpered out, "if my death will satisfy your cold heart, than do it. I could have let you died if I didn't go when Mathias asked me to, so keep that in your conscious."

"I would have been better off if you did...and so would you, Darien!"

With a tightened face, Aleutian placed the cold steel silencer shroud two inches from Darien's head, and placed his finger over the trigger.

There, he slowly began to squeezed it:

"Daddy?"

The sear from Aleutian's pistol was half way from releasing the spring that drove the hammer home to the firing pin when the echidna snapped his head to the right to see where the tiny whimpered voice came from. It was a little girl he gasped internally, her golden hair draped across her shoulders, standing in the middle of the door frame that Aleutian failed to see open, holding a stuffed brown teddy bear in her left hand.

"What are you doing to my daddy?" she asked almost in tears.

Aleutian's mouth started quivering, his eyes widening from his narrowed gaze. If Darien wanted to, he could have rolled over into Aleutian's legs and taken him down, but his attention was also on his daughter with his thoughts of accepting death vanishing with another flash of lightning.

Darien winced when a sharp click snapped over his head. When his eyes came to after shutting them, he realized that he was still alive.

With a hard deep breath after de-cocking his weapon, Aleutian shakingly holstered it into his shoulder rig before kneeling beside the hard breathing Overlander. "Tonight, you hug your daughter," came Aleutian, choking back his emotions with a shaking, seething voice. "Tonight, you hug her like you've never done before in her existence. For tonight, she has saved you from _myself_." His last phrase coming out as a deep sob.

He stood up, taking in one last look at the petrified little girl as he slowly made his way to the wooden door. He slammed it behind him as he walked out into the dark, pouring rain.

Darien's daughter quickly came to her dad's side when the dark stranger left, wrapping her arms around his broad back with her teddy bear still clutched in her small hand. "Daddy who was that?"

But the answer only came in mumbles, as she couldn't make out her dad's words over the howling wind with the pounding rain drops on the window...

"...I'm sorry Aleutian..."

* * *

**Echoes of Autumn**

by: Mauser

* * *

"_Aleeuuutiiaan..."_

He focused on the palms of his red furred hands, but his gaze soon shifted through them down to the golden, brown leaf littered ground, seeing his sleeves from his jacket almost blending in perfectly with the backdrop. He didn't know where he was, or even why he was there where he stood. His eyes twitched back and forth as he shifted his head up, scanning his surroundings and trying to get his bearings. He met a wall of trees all around him, their branches still covered with dead yellow, brown, and golden leaves. With the passing wind that fluttered his dreads around his head, goose bumps crept up under his silk furred skin. It wasn't that the chill was causing this feeling in him, but he didn't hear any sounds from birds or that of any other wild life for that matter. Just the trees.

As the winds howled passed him, he fixed his gaze on his muzzle To his utter surprise he didn't see the long trailing scar at the center of his snout that would have disappeared down and over his cheek. Feeling his face with his hand, his muzzle felt as smooth as the day he was born. Having the joy mixed with surprise of discovering that his blemish was gone, Aleutian quickly felt behind his right eye. Those scars were gone as well. Jabbing his chest next with his open hand and gazing at it with his stunned eyes, the long slash wasn't visible anymore either. And the last thing he grabbed was his half torn dread on the left side of his head..

It was whole.

"_Aleuuutiiaan..."_

The echidna snapped his head around to the right, his face expressionless as he searched for the feminine voice that was calling his name.

"Who's there?" he called out.

"_Aleuuutiaaan..."_ came the voice again, trailing the last syllable out with the wind.

Pivoting his whole body around, Aleutian found himself starring down a narrow twisted path that was alined with trees. He took a step forward as he stared down the path; searching hard through the waving trees for who was calling his name.

"_Aleuuutiaan..."_

"Emee?!" Aleutian called out, finally realizing who the voice was. He couldn't miss the sweetness of it.

"_Aleuuutiiaan..."_

Certain that her voice was coming from his pointed direction, he took off running down the path, his hands pumping back and forth as he sprinted across the ground.

"Emee, where are you?" he called out again with excitement, smiling between his panting breaths.

"_Aleuutiaan..."_ this time her voice sounded as if she was taunting him, as if they were playing a game.

"Emi-La, come on babe, show yourself. It's me; your Guardian," summoned Aleutian in a playful laugh.

"_Aleutian..."_ came the voice again, but this time it was to Aleutian's left. He stopped quickly and swung his eyes around, observing that her voice was close, but it didn't have that playful tone anymore.

"Emee?" he called out again, his baritone voice mixed with worry and playfulness. Aleutian pointed himself to the last direction of her voice and jogged his way through the small thicket. After about four yards, another cumbersome trail appeared before him.

"_Aleutian!..."_ she demanded with a hint of a shrill.

"Emi-La, I'm over here," he replied with a flat voice.

Hearing nothing over the moving air, he again took off running but slowed himself as he became entangled with the low lying branches of the wood work. After he freed himself, his progress was met with some resistence as he lumbered over downed branches and exposed roots.

As his path became less with obstacles, she called again, but her sweet voice sounded worried:

"_Aleutian..."_

"Emee...I'm over here!" Aleutian blurted out, hoping his raised voice would carry over the howling wind to her. Quickening his pace, the alert Guardian raced along the beaten path, thrusting his hands up and down with every hard step.

"_ALEUTIAN!!!"_ the voice screamed over the wind. Aleutian realized to his horror that it was the same blood curtailing scream that Emi-La had called out to him when she was facing the lone black Swat Bot.

He pumped faster through the winding trail. "EMEE!" he screamed out, his voice distorted as he pushed forward through the trail.

His journey quickly ended when he stopped at the edge of a small meadow that was a sea of fallen leaves. Aleutian was still breathing in hard as he scanned the open field and tree line. As he took in a long breath to slow himself, he stopped cold when his eyes came upon someone in the center of the field. Curiosity consumed his psyche as a puzzled, gapping look stretched across clean face. With a lasting step, he cautiously crept into the meadow.

To his trembling surprise within the third step, he suddenly realized that the lone figure was...

"_A child?"_ he gasped at himself as he stepped closer. With his widened eyes, Aleutian could see the child was but an infant even with its back turned to him. As the wind picked up a little more, the child's red hair started to flap in the breeze and danced around his yellow pajamas. Then, Aleutian muscles locked him into place as the baby slowly turned around to face him. It was a boy echidna. Aleutian's mouth dropped as his eyes were met by the sight of the young boy that was suckling on his thumb. He traced the child up and down with his blue eyes, his gaze only stopping when he saw two protruding spikes coming out from the knuckles of the baby.

The child soon popped his thumb out of his mouth and exchanged it for a smile. "Aluushan," he slurred out, holding the smile out until it eerily faded.

Aleutian just stood there, his hands becoming soaked with sweat as he stared at the child that laid before him. With a hard swallow that sent a fast moving shiver all around his body, he began to take a step towards the baby when he felt the warmth of another person beside him.

"Aleutian," came a calm cool voice from his left side.

With a slow turn, Aleutian pivoted himself around to see who it was. His eyes met a figure in a long, flapping black coat, his chest bearing body armor, and his head covered by a wide brimmed fedora with a red ribbon that ran around the base of it. To his horror and surprise, the face under the hat was his: the scars, the stubbed lock; it was that same cold, dark face that looked mad at the world. He felt as if he was looking into a mirror, seeing his darker-self in the reflection.

The dark echidna lifted his arm up, extending a large black pistol out and pointed it right at Aleutian's head. Before Aleutian could dive out of way, he saw the tendons of the other echidna's hand twitch as he pulled the trigger.

* * *

Aleutian shot his head up from the pillows of his bed, breathing in his reaction from the worst nightmare his mind had ever produced. Emi-La's voice, along with the young child's, all went away with the image of himself replaced in his mind. The sun tried desperately to creep in through the white shades of the darkened room, but all Aleutian cared about was himself at that moment, sweating and quivering with emotion. As his eyes became clear, his gaze became fixed on the mirror across the room. Seeing the same dark echidna from his dream at the other end, he reached up and felt along his face, tracing his scars with the reflection of himself in the mirror. His body began to tremble as the realization of his reality came to full bare of who he was.

Himself.

Reaching over to his right, Aleutian felt for the wooden box that lay on the table stand beside his bed. Flipping the cover up, he plucked a magazine out from the blue velvet lining, and started flicking the cartridges onto the floor with his thumb, every round thumping as they landed on the carpet. He counted every one of them as he pushed them out of the magazine until he stopped with only one still being held in by the lip of the metal stick. Aleutian then grabbed the cold steel-framed pistol out of the box and slammed the magazine up into the well. Gripping the handle with his right hand and placing his left hand across the slide, he racked the lone bullet inside the chamber of the weapon.

With a deep breath, he placed the protruding threaded barrel up to his temple and placed his furred finger on the trigger.

He raised his head up, meeting his eyes with his mirrored self again. Aleutian tensed his hand around the polymer grip and tried to pull the trigger back, but he met resistence with himself as he stared hard into the mirror. His face tensed with frustration with himself, his twin scars behind his right eye molding into one as his eyes twitched. Tears soon fell down from both as he fidgeted the pistol around his temple.

Then Aleutian's blurred vision fixated on his mark of Guardian, piercing the white mark into his brain that helped trigger his next thought. With a fast motion of his hand, he pulled the gun away from his head and pointed it at the mirror, driving the trigger towards the handle as he screamed with rage and frustrations. Aleutian didn't hear the shot, but he did fell the gun jump in his hand as the slide locked back over the empty magazine. The mirror shattered as the nine millimeter bullet impacted, sending glass shards to the floor and on top of the wooden dresser that it rested upon.

Exhaling his rage from his lungs, Aleutian dropped the pistol on the floor and placed his hands over his face. With that, he began to cry.

* * *

Locke shot up from one of the sofas in the living room when his slumber was shattered from the report of Aleutian's gun. Quickly shaking the fog of sleep from his head, he got to his feet and ran down the hall to his son's room. With a hard thrust against the door with his shoulder, he forced himself in. His senses were met by the sulfur smell of gun powder as he took in the surroundings. Stopping at the bed, he gasped at the image of his son crying in his hands with a black empty pistol on the floor beside his bed.

"Aleutian!?" he screamed in horror as he ran over to the bed, embracing his arms around the chest of Aleutian.

As he held his crying son in his arms, he toured his eyes around the dark room once more. Channeling his senses with his sight, Locke felt the room was filled with enormous pain, and he needed to get Aleutian out of it. "Come on, son. Lets get some fresh air," he requested, tugging on his son's bare body to get him going. It worked. Aleutian started to move out of the bed, throwing the white cotton sheets away to his side as he stepped onto the floor with his bare feet.

Locke supported Aleutian over his shoulder as they made their way out of the room and down the hall. As they crept closer to the end of it, Aleutian stuck his hand out and started grasping at the pictures on the wall. He tried to snag the lone picture of Emi-La, but he lost his grip to it and ended up sending it to the floor. He tried for another, but his shaking hand along with his forward motion to the end of the hallway just pulled more pictures down to the floor.

Locke quickened his pace to the back porch. When he cleared the excess wall that divided the hall from the kitchen, he felt his son tense up in his arms. He glanced over to Aleutian and saw that he was hyperventilating, his breaths increasing and rapidly exchanging the oxygen in and out of his lungs. As Locke moved faster towards the double doors, he heard Aleutian stop breathing altogether. He was still conscious, but his face showed that he was trying desperately to suck in the precious oxygen.

With a hard pull, Locke tore a door open and raced outside to the rising sun. "Breathe Aleutian. Come on, breathe!" he shouted to his son, almost as a plea.

All Aleutian could hear at that moment was his name being called out by Emi-La. Her sweet voice echoed to him as Locke dragged him to the railing that overlooked the long drop to the beach. Aleutian's stomach tightened as his lungs met harsh resistence with every fleck of air that he tried to breathe in, but oxygen would never inflate them.

"Breathe, son!" Locke hammered out.

"_Aleuutiaan..." _whispered the female voice of Emi-La.

"Breathe, ALEUTIAN!"

Instead of inhaling, Aleutian projected his stomach contents out onto the tall grass, doing it twice over at that moment. With a hard deep intake of air, Aleutian moaned to the orange rising sun, his jaw trembling all the while. Soon, his whole body began to quiver as his knees collapsed from hard shudders that sent him to the wooden deck. Locke helped slow his decent to the ground as Aleutian was overcome by his emotions. The elder echidna wished that he had help from either Knuckles or even his ex-wife at this rate.

Placing his left arm under Aleutian's legs, Locke picked his son up off the deck and guided him over to the swing that hung to the left of the door facing the sunrise. Easing him onto it, Locke released his clutches and had the swing care for his son. With the shivers increasing, Locke raced back inside and grabbed the covers off the couch that he had called a bed that night. Quickly making his way back out, he draped them over Aleutian.

"Aleutian, can you hear me?" he asked. The reply he got was only a whimpered moan.

He paced back and forth around the back porch, trying to gather his thoughts as to what was happening to his eldest son. With each passing second, his thoughts slowly became organized.

"I need Archy, and now!" he seethed out to himself. He knew that the Fire Ant could help him, and that it was only a matter of summoning his old mentor.

Locke dropped down to the ground, crossed his legs, and placed his hands over his knees. With a hard deep trance, his mind raced back across the ocean to Angel Island, over the fields and across the valleys to the Lava Reef Zone to Archimedes. _"Archy, I need you, now!"_

His concentration broke when Aleutian moaned through his shivers. Locke quickly sprang up to his feet and touched his son's arm. "Aleutian, what's wrong. Are you cold? Are you in pain?" he asked with a sharp concerned voice. All he got were more moans in reply.

A puff of smoke suddenly exploded on Locke's left shoulder. As the purple cream dissipated, it revealed a deep red, four armed fire ant with an Aussie hat on top of his head. "What is it Locke, I was..." Archy stopped cold when he saw Aleutian swaying on the long swing. "The lad? What's going on Locke?"

"I was hoping you would tell me?" Locke cried out as he looked over his shoulder. "I don't know what powers are possessing him right now."

Archy twitched his antennas along with his tweezer claws over his mouth. "I saw most of his powers get drained Locke, this is something else..."

"...Thy Aleutian is purging," came a soft spoken voice from behind the two.

On instinct and training, Locke swung his left arm out, pivoting his body around to give more force to his swing to the threat that spoke behind him. Locke's anticipation of his arm hitting a soft, fleshy object disappeared when he felt his upper wrist being crushed with what felt like two fingers being wrapped around it. A fraction of a second later he felt himself losing his balance from whoever it was that had a solid grip on his wrist, and was now yanking him over with his own momentum. He stopped half way from going face first into the wooden deck when he felt his elbow lock against a soft, furry object. His idea of a counter-strike vanished when his palm was pushed into his wrist. With the commanding pain pushing him backwards, Locke found himself in a sitting position on the wooden deck in a heartbeat.

"And a good day to thee as well," came the voice again. What Locke's eyes saw when he looked up was a white rabbit whose ears were dangling behind his back with his face showing discontent. The rabbit's fur had black blotches around his face and what Locke could see of his body. A large patch of black was also over his right eye, which was green, but his left eye happened to be a sky blue. He wore no shirt to speak if, but instead, an opened brown leather aviator jacket that extended down above his waist. What the rabbit had for pants were more like a white robe that ran down each leg, cinched to his waist with a black knotted belt. On his left side was a brown, fully covered holster with a hilt of a pistol only visible as a shadow under the flap. And between the belt and his pants, a black woven handle of a short sword.

Locke felt his arm being tugged as the lop pulled him up from the wooden ground. Archy held on to the side of his dreads as the echidna was helped off the ground. Locke met the rabbit nose to nose as he regained his footing. With a hard stare, the black and white lop twitched his nose, making his whiskers dance around a bit. Still holding Locke's wrist, he reached up with his left hand and drank from a white saucer. Locke realized that his fast assault was countered with only one arm from the lop, and he did it without even spilling his drink that laid in the other. "Can I help you with something!?" he seethed out as he tried to pull his arm away.

"Yes, thou can hold my empty cup," calmly replied the rabbit, flipping Locke's wrist over and placing the saucer in the his hand.

Releasing his two fingered grip from around Locke's wrist, the lop glided his way over to Aleutian, his large shoeless feet not even making a creak as he moved across the wooden deck. He softly knelt down by the swing and focused his two toned eyes on the shuddering echidna, tracing his hand over Aleutian's head and around his scars.

"Keep your hands off my son!" Locke barked out, stepping forward to put action to his words.

"Now he is your son?" came the rabbit with a hint of shock in his voice, rising up and turning to met Locke's stiffened eyes yet again. "Only rejecting the dire help that he needs from a friend is in this evolution that thou stakes claim to his son," said the rabbit. "Thou selfish wants precede thee."

Locke's mouth gaped open at what the lop eared rabbit said. "How do you know of me?" he questioned harshly.

"Why, Aleutian has spoken of thee of course. I wanted to venture to see the true you with my own green and blue eyes, hoping that Aleutian was only rebelling against the father, but the image that thee has brought forth to me rings true," replied the rabbit in his own unique matter-of-fact way. "Tell me, Locke the Liar, does thou selective mute insect still hold his tongue?"

"What on Mobius did you call me!?" bellowed Locke as he balled his fist, never minding at what the rabbit just called Archimedes.

"'Locke the Liar,' I said. That is who thee _is_." said the rabbit in the form of a statement rather than a question.

"You take that back, sir! You don't even know who I am!" Locke shouted at the lop. The rabbit just stood his ground, not even showing a hint of defensiveness.

"_Archy, who is this guy?"_ Locke asked Archimedes through telepathy.

"_A threat, mate. Keep your wits about you with this one,"_ replied the red fire ant, still hanging onto Locke's shoulder.

"Why should thy take the truth back. After all, you lie to thine own family."

"I had too, to help protect them..."

"...And the fruits of thy labor has fallen from a poisonous tree, and has stricken my friend and pupil with a plague that I alone haven't been able to cure," he coldly said, waving his left hand over at Aleutian.

Locke rolled his fists in anger, crushing the lop's saucer that still laid in the open palm of his left hand. The white pieces of the shattered ceramic saucer fell to the wooden deck at Locke's feet.

The rabbit just twitched his nose again as he gazed hard into Locke's raging eyes. "I see why thee lies. You cannot stand the pain of truth," he stated, pausing before he spoke again. "That makes thee weak!"

The lop pivoted on his large feet and glided towards the doubled door entrance of the house with his arms slightly waving at his side. Locke marched right behind him with Archimedes in tow on his shoulder. The rabbit took a sharp right turn and made his way to Aleutian's fridge. With the same speed he used to open it, he closed it just as fast with a look of disappointment scribbled on his face; there was nothing in it.

"You, Mute Fire-Ant!" the lop called out, pointing to Archy, "Go back outside and mind my pupil," he ordered to Archy, pausing briefly as he sniffed the inside air of the house before he gave his reason, "thee has thought about death today...his own. Aleutian needs to be watched."

Archy jumped off Locke's shoulder and ran out the door. Locke, himself, was standing in awe before his former, tempered self, reemerged:

"Who– who are you," he stuttered out.

"Oh, my apologies for not being cordial to the likes of thee. I'm Lopper, but thou can call me Mr. Lopper," he told Locke in a boastful voice, placing his right hand over his chest as if giving a salute.

"What type of name is _that_?" ask Locke in a gruff voice.

"The very name that has placed victory in thy favor over thee," replied the shrewd rabbit, sporting a sly grin around his face. He quickly turned and walked up the two steps that lead to the living room. There, he darted to the left and stopped at the first fallen picture on the floor in the middle of the hall. Lopper's expressionless face frowned as he gazed down at the picture of Emi-La and Aleutian. The two looked inseparable at his vantage point. But Death had dictated differently.

"What do you know of Emee, Locke the Liar?" he asked, his tone softening as he picked up the picture from the blue carpeted floor.

"Emee?" Locke repeated, his voice even.

"Thou son's reason why he thought of death this morrow," the rabbit explained as he held up the picture in front of Locke. The Guardian took it from the soft white hands of the rabbit and studied it.

Lopper picked up the other downed pictures and hung them back on the wall, taking great care of Emi-La's lone picture as he placed it back in its spot. He then gently placed his left hand over the picture and traced her locks and her silk scarf down over the glass. He too, missed her.

"It was only a matter of time and pain before thy Aleutian took upon this one way path. Why Mathias is not here for him is beyond me."

"Because the Dingo is no longer with us," replied Locke, still gazing at the picture in his hand.

"You lie," said Lopper in an eerily calm way, quickly turning towards Locke with his hands behind his back.

Locke's long face looked up briefly before going back down to Emi-La and his son. "Aleutian torched his house last night. I saw it with my own eyes...no one came out from it."

Lopper's blue and green eyes narrowed as he turned around and stepped inside Aleutian's office. He floated to the bookcase on the right side of the room and counted the volumes of journals that he had told Aleutian to write over a year and a half ago. Only counting four of the different colored books, Lopper sighed at the disorganized room and exited it. He darted left into the hall and proceeded towards Aleutian's room. There, he found the empty pistol on the floor along with the eleven unspent bullet,s and the lone empty brass casing. Then the lop navigated his eyes around to the right, overlooking the room before stopping at the smashed mirror. A bullet hole dotted the wall behind it.

With another mournful frown, Lopper maneuvered himself over to the pistol and picked it up, ejecting the magazine out of the handle as soon as his white hands felt the release lever at the bottom of the trigger guard. He then knelt down onto the floor, after placing the weapon on the bed, and began to pick up every live cartridge before placing them back inside the magazine. Lopper then placed the magazine back in its place inside the box, along with the pistol after he closed the slide and de-cocked the hammer.

He made his way back to the hallway, seeing Locke still standing in the middle of it, studying the picture in his gloved hands. "Thou wonders of her?" Lopper asked.

"Where is she?" Locke said, his head still lowered at the picture.

With a lasting look, Lopper lead Locke back outside, passing Aleutian and Archimedes as they rode the swaying swing. The sun had risen further up, its bottom edge still hidden by the horizon of the ocean as the two Mobians turned to the north. Achy followed them with his sight as they rounded the silky grass covered bluff. He shuttered and shunned himself as he realized where the lop was taking Locke. The Fire Ant did speak to Locke about Emi-La, but he didn't tell him of her death and Aleutian's fall from grace. And now, he was paying a bitter price for not going against his word to Mathias. _"You should have said something to him about that day, mate."_ he scolded at himself. For many around Mobius that day was a grand new beginning...but not for Aleutian.

"_He's lost Locke,"_ came Achy's words from that day that echoed in his mind, his eyes resting on Aleutian.

* * *

"She was my best pupil, and I miss her very much. She could light up the dark side of the moon with her smile, and she was a guiding star to thine Aleutian," said Lopper as he and Locke looked over the tombstone of Emi-La. Only her name was chiseled in the stone along with the date of her passing: _Day 164, 3235_. At the very bottom though, was a small phrase that read; _"I love you." _Locke knew without a doubt that it was put there by Aleutian.

"What happened, Mr. Lopper?"

"Emee died in Aleutian's arms on a field of battle with no name," Lopper began with a deep sigh. "Most warriors usually can go on after a loss like that, but..." he paused for a brief moment as he placed his hands behind his back, "Emee lost her life along with many others on a field of battle for a traitor...actually many traitors." Lopper then turned to Locke, his ears dangling around in the gentle wind. "Thy son was betrayed over greed, and Aleutian lost the one that truly mattered to him because of it. If she hadn't died, Aleutian would've returned home like so many of us wanted him to."

Locke stared at the grave of his son's equal, realizing just how hard it must have been for Aleutian, and how hard it was going to be for him to get his son out from the darkness. "Where is this traitor now?" Locke seethed out between his teeth.

"Dust in the wind," literally stated Lopper unbeknownst to Locke, "along with a few others. And if thee wants to know that part of the story, one must look to the Muted Fire Ant."

"What do you mean?" came back Locke.

"I believe Archimedes saw the whole act," Lopper replied coldly.

And with that, the rabbit glided closer to Emi-La's gave and knelt down beside it. Placing his right hand on top of the stone, he spoke in a gentle voice to Emee:

"Hello my pupil. We miss thee at the side of Aleutian," he began. "Do wish thou was here for him...he needs you more than all of us," he sighed out. Then his expression went a little lighter. "But do you see thee who is over thy shoulder," he said as he gestured to Locke with his head, "That be Aleutian's father, and I am confidant that he will bring your lover back to us."

* * *

Lopper and Locke made their way back to the swing where Aleutian was lying . There, by his side for once in the lops eyes, was Archy, stroking the blemished marks on a sleeping, shivering echidna. Lopper showed his disgust with the fire ant as he frowned in his direction before he strolled back inside the house. As he approached the small steps again, he glanced at the back of a couch and saw Aleutian's duffle bag. Grabbing it, he placed it on the small table that separated the kitchen from the living room and unzipped it. He sifted through it until his hand found the blue journal. Opening it, Lopper quickly ran his hands through the pages, looking at the last entries in the blue book. He came upon the entry where Aleutian wrote about finding his brother. Then he read on through the voyage that Aleutian took with the Freedom Fighters, the Chaotix, and Knuckles. The last entry that he could read from Aleutian's disjointed handwriting was the downing of the two scout bots.

Overall, Lopper's thoughts on Aleutian started to slowly change, recognizing that his pupil maybe well on the path to coming in from the cold. What he said to Emi-La's resting place was true, and he hoped Locke and Archimedes would see to it.

Curious as to if Aleutian had discarded his black coat and hat, along with the weapons that even Lopper considered were below Aleutian when he got them, the lop made his way over to the closet. Lock stepped around the table just as Lopper pulled the door open. His face slowly lit up with a smile when he couldn't find the dark clothing that was supposed to be used for rainy days and not looking like an executioner everywhere one went. The Aleutian that he remembered and halfway taught and trained, wasn't like that. What friends the scarred echidna had left, felt the same way as the modest but deadly lop did.

"One other thing, Locke the Liar," Lopper called out evenly.

"Do you have to keep calling me that?!"

"Until thee thinks that thou has deserved a better name with actions...yes," replied Lopper bluntly. "But...one other thing, Locke the Liar. Emee was caring a child when she died."

"What?" Locke gasped in as he braced the wall beside him. "Did my son tell you this?"

"No, but I saw it in his eyes when thou told me of her death. But, nevertheless, what I have seen here this morning, shows that Aleutian is well on his way out from the cold. The Guardian has already tried the easy way out. Now it is up to thee Liar and the Muted Fire Ant to help him find the road out of the woods."

"Why not you as well..."

"...Because, it is _thou_ mess to clean up, not mine. The Goddess knows that Thy has tried hard, but the signs and stars have shown me wisdom that it will be his family that will help Aleutian. He needs someone that doesn't understand him over the ones who do. Aleutian knows what his friends and mentors will say to him, but those who don't know him, they will have a different point of view that he needs."

Locke nodded at Lopper's words. "Archy did tell me somewhat about her and that Aleutian was in love. But he didn't tell how much my son loved her, and that she had perished."

"Why Thy say the ant is a mute. If thou ant had spoken, you would have been here by his side a heart beat away, and Aleutian would be doing much better." Lopper then walked up to the lightly bearded echidna. "Thou has my profound wishes on your success. Thee can succeed where we've failed."

With an everlasting look from the blue and green eyed lop, Locke watched Lopper walk past him, seeing the white painting of a griffin on the brown jacket, and under it, the word, "Freelanders" written underneath it. He soon followed the rabbit back outside.

Lopper knelt down one last time to Aleutian, rubbing his right hand across the echidna's deep scars. This made Aleutian slowly open his glazed over eyes. He moaned as he turned his head away after seeing the two tone eyes of Lopper. The rabbit just smiled when he saw the reaction:

"Don't worry my pupil. I'm not here to give thou grief. We will have our talk when thee comes back."

Lopper stood up and looked over at Locke, then down at Archimedes. "Again, my profound wishes to thy's success." And with a nod of sympathy, he glided off the wooden deck and disappeared as he rounded the side of the house, not even making the wood creak as he passed.

Locke turned to Archy after seeing the cotton balled tail of Lopper disappear around the house, his eyes narrowing at the fire ant. "Who was that?" he breathed out.

"That mate, is one scary rabbit," replied Archimedes forthwith.

Not pleased with the answer, Locke stared hard at his old friend. "And how so?"

"You know the ninjutsu that we have you Guardians shy away from?" Archy returned.

"Yes."

"Well, that bloke uses it as an art and a way of life!" Archy exclaimed almost in shock.

"But he looks as if he can't possibly possess the capabilities or mind set to use it..."

"...Then he has already won the fight. He plays by deception and there is more under that fur coat than meets the eye. Aleutian knows more about him than I do, but I'm always alert when that rabbit is around."

"Yes, and how does my son know about him?" Locke bitterly asked.

"Because, Lopper picked up where you left off. He trained him Locke, and Aleutian's way of fighting is the style which we like for you to shy away from," Archy replied.

"And how do you know him?" asked Locke, narrowing his eyes even further.

Archimedes stared hard into the cold blue eyes of his friend, "Remember when Athair came to you, to tell you that he found Aleutian?"

"Yes!" Locke remembered that day quite vividly: his great grandfather coming to Haven with the news that his son wasn't dead like they thought. Locke did search for him when he discovered Aleutian's note the next morning after he had ran away. But only after picking up the mute signal from the hand held computer at the bottom of the sea did he bitterly concluded that Aleutian had drowned in the frigid water.

That was until Athair came.

"When you sent me after Aleutian to bring him back, just before you left Knuckles alone to go to Haven; Athair told me where he had sent Aleutian and Emi-La. It was Lopper's home and school, unbeknownst to the two," he pointed out. "I did reach the lop's place, but only to find that they had already left to return back to Mathias's place."

"And so you tracked them down there, but only to come back to me..."

"...Without him, only with his emboldened distrust of you," Archy replied.

Locke turned his profound attention to the now fully risen sun. He crossed his arms over the railing and thought hard at to how he was going to help Aleutian. This Lopper was correct: his labors brought forth fruit from a poisonous tree. But could he start anew? Frankly he couldn't. The seeds were already grounded with roots and it was nearly impossible to bear better fruit.

"_But the tree is still young,"_ Locke pointed out to himself. If a young sapling was in poor soil to grow, one could move it to a different part of the ground and replant it. But Aleutian's original home was too volatile to start regrowing:

"_But this is his home. The very ground I stand on now is his home. But it, too, is laced with danger and pain."_

He thought hard about his mess, watching the gulls fly back and forth from their entrenched nests around the bluff. Locke witnessed one fly out from a cradled ledge, swopping down before it caught a thermal from the ground, rising up before it touched the low tide beach. The gull hung in the air for a moment before a mild gust of wind ruffled it feathers, making the gull look as if it was shivering in the cool breeze as it turned and flew back to its nest in the bluff. And that was when it came to Locke's mind.

He put what he saw into perspective about his son's situation. The gull leaving his home resembled Aleutian, his small fall before his rise, and then hanging in the cold wind. But the way the gull went back home was almost the same way it left it...and that was how Aleutian needed to go back.

"Archimedes," Locke called, "do you remember where Aleutian had met Athair?"

"Kinda', somewhere at the edge of the Badlands. Why?" asked the fire ant, already getting an idea of where they where possibly going for the next couple of days.

"Good enough," Locke replied. With his thoughts organized, he knew what Aleutian really needed to do...tell his past to his father. He needed to open up to someone else, like Mr. Lopper had pointed out. And with his shoulder to cry on if Aleutian needed it, Locke would also train him to regain his powers.

His kind needed him to.

* * *

Please review: desperate here. This is an revised version with a little more descriptions mixed in, but not by much. Hope you enjoyed Lopper...one of my better characters. 


	2. Offerings

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Chapter 2. Not much in the way of authors notes excpet that I will be done describing Aleutian'a house after this. Finally get to see the underbelly of this place. 

Disclamer: I own nothing of the Sonic Franchise.

* * *

**Offerings**

By: Mauser

* * *

The late morning sun pierced through Aleutian's fur coat that warmed his skin. The radiant light invaded his dilated pupils through his eyelids, causing him to stir finally. Opening his eyes, Aleutian was at first blinded by the sun, but as his pupils constricted, the cloudless blue sky enveloped his sight. The culling from the gulls broke the strain of sleep even further. He breathed in deep, sucking in the humid saltwatered air through his nostrils as he regained his bearings. Aleutian felt himself swinging in the lone breeze, finding his lower extremities covered with a white knitted blanket. He closed his eyes again and opened them. Static floaters danced around his sight as he looked out to the rolling waves that crashed over the rocks of the cliffs and the beach.

Exerting the muscles of his left arm, he lifted himself up from the swing and placed his feet down on the deck. As his wary head came too, he traced the thin lines that made up the grains of the wood on the deck. His trance was soon broken when he heard glass being piled together from inside his house. He quickly got up and slowly plodded his way inside, his bare feet feeling as if they were being scorched on the warm deck.

As his feet slapped down on the cool, soothing tile floor of the kitchen, Aleutian saw his father holding up pieces of the broken mirror in the air without even touching the shards as his hand floated six inches away from the glass. With the release of his concentration, Locke dropped the broken pieces into the trash can that was at the base of the door. He then looked up at his son with an expressionless face. "How are you feeling?"

Aleutian placed his left hand on the side of his head, rubbing it to soothe the ache. "I don't know yet," he whispered, "My head hurts really bad right now."

"Do you remember anything from this morning?" Locke asked next, nodding with his words.

Aleutian shuddered as he shook his head, almost looking as if he were going to cry again. "Yeah, I about plastered my brains over the wall. Then, after awhile, I thought I was in the next life because I couldn't breathe."

The scarred echidna closed his eyes, seeing the flashes made by his pupils dilating from the sudden blackness from his eye lids. The flashes went from blue to green in an instant, making it look like someone had flashed a camera at Aleutian.

But he saw something else with his sight; "Tell me dad, did a two tone eyed lop come and pay me a visit?" Aleutian asked, directing his question at his father with a narrowed look.

"You have an interesting friend, son." Locke replied, almost with a smug.

Aleutian sighed with a grimace. "What few I have left."

"You haven't chased them off with your attitude, have you?" Locke asked, wondering what his son's answer was going to be.

"No, death has taken them." Aleutian breathed.

He continued on in, climbing the two steps that led into the living room, turning down the hall and back to his room. Stopping short at the door frame, he noticed that his father had gotten all of the shattered mirror pieces off the blue carpet. With his thoughts of having his bare feet sliced by the glass vanishing, Aleutian slowly made his way over to his night stand. He flipped opened the box and saw his pistol lying snug in its holdings. Closing it back, he piled it on his bed and went looking for his socks and boots.

Locke stood by the book cases that lined the north wall by one of the front windows, studying what his lost son had. The titles impressed him. The subject matter ranged from war and fighting styles, to romances and cookbooks. But the title he saw that made him reach up and pull a book away from the uniformed row spiked his curiosity: _"Stopping Violence with Mere Presence."_

"You seem to share the same interest that your brother has about reading," Locke commented.

Aleutian appeared from the hallway with his boots on and the wooden box in his hands. "Those are some of our favorites," he said, "If you want, you can borrow that one. Very insightful on how to make someone think twice before attacking you."

"How so?"

"The author tells how you can give someone a certain look and stance that makes them feel like they've just been in a fight and lost big time without laying a finger on you," Aleutian summarized with a half smile. "You'll get a kick out of it."

The young Guardian then turned and went for his duffel bag at the back of the couch. He placed it and the wooden box on the small table, that divided the kitchen and living room, before sifting through it, grabbing the pictures and his journal out of it. Aleutian then paced back down the hall and went into his cluttered office, only coming back out with his journal still in his hands along with a tan colored back pack that slung over his shoulder. From it dangled a small clear cord from it while sporting three pouches. The largest one could hold up to three days worth of rations.

"I need to go back to Knothole," he announced as he placed the bag on the table.

"What for?" Locke asked with a shrewd voice, "Your kind needs you along with your brother."

Aleutian took a deep breath before he answered. "I need to talk with Elias about Mathias and some of the unknown allies from the past."

"So, you are going to open up to him and not me!?" Locke almost barked out, folding his arms across his chest.

"Just certain things father. Things that they need to know about so hopefully they can find victory quicker. If they can defeat Eggman there, then our fight back...home," the thought made Aleutian cringe for some reason, "ceases."

"Your brother believes that, and it's why he hasn't returned home."

"Good, they can use his powers! Besides, isn't what's supposed to do anyways? That was your vision if I remember right?"

Locke traced his eyes over the thick fibers of the blue carpet. "Yes, you do remember well. So what about you?"

Aleutian faced the case that held his weapon, then he looked down the hall at the picture of him and Emi-La. "I need to keep a promise, father. I will return, but I think I need to help the Freedom Fighters for a little while. But I will return."

Locke nodded. "Okay son. Get what you need and we can use my warp ring to get us there. Archy will be tagging along."

"Who?" Aleutian shouted, his temper coming back into play, "your messenger?"

"He was doing what he was asked to do..."

"...Yea, but not telling you the whole truth. If he had any sense of duty to you and our kind, he would have told you what happened to me over two years ago...!"

"...Aleutian!!" With the fury of the purple smoke and Archimedes' voice, he appeared on the small table with all four of his arms crossed and staring at the back of Aleutian, who soon turned around to confront the one who he always hated to talk to. "It was Mathias who told me to stay quiet about you and Emi-La that day, so don't be going off half-cocked, lad, about what my duties are," Archy harshly said. "I did a lot for you, and all you can do is thank me with your cold bitterness?"

"Why should I!?" Aleutian seethed out. "You buried my Fiancée without me being there..."

"...You were on Death's door step, MATE!" retorted the fire ant with two of his right arms pointing at Aleutian.

"Yea," Aleutian seethed out, "but apparently I wasn't important enough to you! You just buried my Emee and left me, telling no one about what had happened!"

"I did tell your fa..."

Aleutian slammed his fist right next to Archimedes on the table. The impact sent the fire ant up about two inches in the air before coming back down. "LIAR!" Aleutian screamed out almost in tears. "If you would have gone back on your word, my father would have been there for me! Not now!"

Archy took a deep hollow breath before he tried to finish his thought, "I told your father that you were lost. It was what Mathias wanted me to say. The Dingo had hoped that Locke would then come for you...but your father said that you were as good as dead to him. It is not me you should be blaming. Its your father."

Aleutian slowly turned around and shot his cold stare at Locke. "You said what?" he eerily asked.

Locke looked at his son's fierce eyes before looking down at the floor in defeat. "I thought you were defying me again, and that you'd totally lost your ways. I didn't know you almost died."

He then thought hard, asking himself why Mathias would play a head game during his son's time of great need. There had to be a reason. "What did you and Mathias see in my son, Archy?"

Archimedes crossed his arms again and gazed at Aleutian. "It was not what we saw; it was what we heard. Your son started mumbling in his sleep before I left. Mathias knew what you were saying but it sounded like evil speak to me; _'Cravan mas thumpsun daron,_'" he quoted.

"What does it mean, Aleutian?" came his father.

His son took in countless deep breaths, lowering his narrowed eyes on Archimedes. Without a word, he turned and marched back towards the closet, grabbing his duffel bag as he went along his way.

Locke came up beside Aleutian as his son opened the closet door. "What does it mean? You're not into sorcery and evil magic, are you?"

"No father. It not only means that Archy can't speak, but he is also deaf," Aleutian quietly said as he grabbed one of his blasters and placed it into his bag.

"And what are you going to do with those?" Locke asked next as he saw his son put another weapon in his bag.

Reaching up for the spare energy cells, Aleutian replied, "You'll see."

Aleutian found himself in the kitchen, grabbing his last blaster and spare cells while leaving his body armor where it lay. Clutching the bag in his right hand, he marched outside with a hard determined stride. Locke followed him with Archy perched on his shoulder.

But before they stepped off onto the grassy ground, Aleutian stopped them with a sudden turn. "You two stay here. None of you are fit to see the grave of my equal."

"I already have looked upon her..."

"...Not while I'm present beside her you don't!" Aleutian harshly fired back before his father could finish his protests. "What you two have and haven't done for me doesn't allow the time and honor to be with me and her in the same space of air!"

With his blemished face relaxing from the tense muscle strain of his fierce anger, Aleutian started off alone to Emee's final resting place on the bluff.

Locke shouted to his son, hoping his point would drive home to him, "You were the one who abandoned us..."

* * *

The fast moving breeze sent Aleutian's locks fluttering behind his head, sometimes making a lone dread wrap around his throat. He would swipe it away with annoyance, but his thoughts on minor physical inconveniences vanished as his stout march brought him closer to Emi-La. With every step, his knees grew weaker, almost becoming sluggish when a mere few paces were left to close the gap. He dropped his duffel bag behind him before he stopped at the granite tombstone. 

With an everlasting look at the side of the stone, Aleutian wet his lips before asking the question to which he would never get an answer. "Are you calling for me? If so, I am here."

The answer came in the form of calls from the gulls that flew below the bluff. With the wind picking up, Aleutian slowly sat down beside Emi-La's stone, leaning up against it, feeling the warmth that radiated it from the sun. For Aleutian, the warmth felt as if she was there, saved fo her physical presence.

"It's been forever autumn without you," he said, his head slumped over onto the stone now. "The wilting leaves of a tree much resembles my heart, turning dead with each passing day with spring looking as if it will never come to renew me." Aleutian choked back his tears briefly before he told her spirit of what was to come of him. "But the change of season is upon me now. Your calling from this morning, I think, is what is bringing the warmth to melt the ice in my heart; turning it into water that will bring life back to me."

He stood up from the soft grassy carpet of Mobius, grabbed his bag from behind him, and strolled to the edge of the bluff.

With the bag falling again to the ground, Aleutian unzipped it and produced a blaster from it. The full length trigger guard traced down to the edge of the magazine well, pointing towards Aleutian as he held it flat in his right hand. For reasons that he quite didn't understand, this particular blaster, and the others that laid at his feet, didn't feel right in his hands anymore. In a sense, they never had felt right. But he had never felt right for over two years.

Grabbing the hilt of the blaster, he chucked it to Neptune, tracing the obtuse rolling weapon to the sea as it fell and splashed in the water below. Picking up another one from his bag, he too offered it to the God of the Sea. With the last one leaving just as easily as the rest, its flight lighter and faster without the emotional baggage, that Aleutian thought he was going to send with it. He thought was going to regret it that he would surly miss them. But he didn't, and he was glad. These pistols that he carried with him for only a few weeks, and never had to use in anger but more of show, left his red furred hands with great ease to his astonishment. And with the cells that powered them, falling from his dark grace as well, Aleutian felt a heavy fog of gloom lifting from his soul.

Picking up the now empty bag, he slowly made his way back over to Emi-La, kneeling over her stone and gently tracing its inscription.

"That was for you, babe. Hopefully when I come back this round, you will see the Aleutian you remembered. Just wish you were by his side when he returns." And with a hard squeeze on the stone he whispered. "I love you, and I'm still committed to you and your promise. I just lost my way."

And with that, he painfully, yet joyfully, went back to his house...and back to his father.

* * *

Locke saw the staunch improvement in his son's mood as Aleutian walked past him, striding in steps with a hint of a swagger as he glided by. 

"So now what?"

"I pack and we leave. Just a few things, that's all."

"You're not taking _that_ pistol with you?" asked Locke with Archimedes still ridding on his shoulder.

Aleutian paused at the door before he replied, "Yes. I have a purpose for it right now."

With a hard left turn, Aleutian made his way to the door that sank lower than the rest at the south end of the house. The squeaking of the hinges moaned as he opened the door, exposing a dark world before him. He flipped a switch that brought forth light down the wooden stairs. With every step sounding as if it could be his last, Aleutian traveled down them, stamping his right foot down on the concrete foundation that signaled that the old decaying stairs were still hanging on. Fishing his left hand over for another light switch on a bracing post that held part of the house up; and what was left of the stairs, he found it and flipped the lever to the wooden ceiling. Hard shunts filled the damp air as breakers switched on automatically. With every breaker thrown, a section of lighting would illuminate the dark underbelly of the cozy house, brightening the basement in all directions.

As the shunts died, the creaking of the stairs were reborn as Locke made his way down. He breathed a quick sigh of relief that he hadn't plummeted to the hard grey concrete floor from the rickety stairs, only to take in a long gasp when his eyes were met by the sight of what was hidden under the house. To his left, a wall with rifles that hovered a few feet off the floor, ranging from many eras: from the first bolt-action cell exchangers, to some of the latest repeating blasters. Aleutian had stacked them on their shoulder stocks with the barrels pointing at the ceiling. The gap that the ceiling and barrels had left wasn't spared: a multitude of pistols and a few sub-guns littered the wall, showing their slides, barrels and safety catches. Locke couldn't count them all but he could gauge the length from his vantage point to be about four yards. When he turned a little to look behind him, the row continued on for another yard before it disappeared behind a column and out of his sight.

Locke shifted his eyes back to the south. A few more support columns that held up the Mobian ground where the house had ended, creating more space to the basement. He could see what looked to be a car of some sort, that stood on tires instead of air, and was under a pale, canvas covering. Beside that, a heap of twisted metal of what looked to be a small fighter ship. Locke could make out the skeleton of a shattered canopy on top of the wrecked fuselage that had burn marks which overlapped what was left of the blue paint. The left side had a wing that was curved up and back from the center, while the right side had no wing to speak of. The jet engine that Locke could see, didn't look like much of one at all. Engines of that type didn't have huge cylindrical fans, and very few at that. The twisted skin was speckled with clumps of dirt with dead grass and roots in some areas. But then he realized that it was a combustible engine that turned a prop. He saw the four bent paddles that gave thrust to the ship, a heap of junk like the rest of it, posted upright behind the plane.

"I don't think the ocean is deep enough to hold all these," he commented to his son about his weapons.

"These, I keep. When this war is over, I want to open a museum either in Echidnaolopis or Mobotropilos when Elias rebuilds it. I do have duplicates of some of these, and those I will keep as my own. Most of these weapons you see here have been liberated from certain people. I shoot them from time to time. Some I have used on operations that I did with my equal and others. But my greatest pride for them is this: I have them, no one else does, and that means that they can't be used against me, my brother, or my kind."

Locke sighed before he spoke. "So you did keep true to your word in your letter."

"Up until two years ago, father."

Aleutian then tested his father's situational awareness when he turned around and pointed towards the back of the long basement. Locke stood in shock but yet became pleased at what he saw. Behind the steps were five rows of bookcases. Where the weapons had begun, ended the first bookcase, and that was where Aleutian went. He reached up on the top shelf on his tip toes and grabbed the first book from it. He clutched it in his hands for a moment with a trying look on his face before he placed it into his bag.

"What's that one about?" Locke asked.

"I don't know," Aleutian lied for once, "I have never read it nor will I."

"Well, what's the title, lad?" asked Archy from Locke's shoulder.

"It has none," Aleutian replied as he stepped past the stunned two.

Making his way to the west wall, Aleutian stopped in front of a long workbench. Assorted tool boxes alined the wall on top of the maple table. At the center of it was a blue reloading press that showed the signs that it had seen better days. The powder cannister was still halfway filled with a black explosive substance, but beside that stood another one that had a clear liquid inside. At the very end of the workbench was a metal box that had several black cords coming from it that sprang up to the ceiling, snaking along the top until they either disappeared into the ceiling or sprang towards one of the light fixtures.

"So what are you using for power?" asked Locke, already guessing what the box was used for.

"A power ring that I snagged from a Swat Bot some moons ago. The house was originally powered by a small nuclear reactor, but the motor that the steam had powered kept me and Emi-La up all night. When we came across a few bots that somehow got a hold of one, we crashed their party and took the ring."

"So, how long did it take you to build this house?" asked Locke.

Aleutian shook his head sadly. "I didn't, it was gift to me and Emee from Lopper. Some of the books were already here, but my travels and some of my friends have turned up more. I've read most of them, but not all."

Opening a long drawer from below the table, Aleutian grabbed ten pistol mags from it with only three being loaded. He hoped that the springs weren't worn from being loaded like they were for such a long time. Weakened springs caused failure to feed, which he had experienced before. He could forgo the pain of doing malfunction drills --especially in a fight– by going stickily to laser and plasma weapons, but those weapons could never be discharged in silence. The jacketed projectile that he fired from his weapon was crude, couldn't stop a bot worth a hoot, and left a rank smell. But some of the Mobians and Overlanders that he had to deal with needed to be serviced with what Aleutian called, "a tool," his "hush-puppy" (as Emi-La had came to call it), that was given to him by Lopper as well.

Closing the drawer, he opened another one below it, grabbing four white boxes from it, and some webbed gear as well before he closed the drawer and zipped his bag. He turned to his left and was about to go and place his bag in his hover car when he realized it wasn't there.

"Oh man..."

Locke smirked at his son's exaggerated voice, "What?"

"I left my car in Mathias's garage."

"And I take it that it's..."

"...With Mathias now," Aleutian finished with a groan. "That makes two cars in the span of a week."

"Like I said, I have a warp ring we can use. It was how we got here last night," volunteered Locke

"Good, I didn't want to take this one anyways," he said as he pointed towards the covered car.

Reaching the main and only floor of the house, Aleutian went back to the closet and grabbed his brown aviator jacket that he quickly put on. He unzipped his bag one last time to place the tan colored backpack in it. With everything packed and ready, he nodded at his father.

"I'm ready. As soon as you get me there, you two can take off."

"Actually Aleutian, we aren't going to leave," came Locke. "We are going to train you and help grasp your powers back..."

"...I don't want them!" Aleutian fired back harshly.

Locke gazed into his son's seething eyes before he spoke, "Why? Your abilities that you were born with can..."

"...No! I don't want them!"

Seeing Aleutian's face the way it was, the scars projecting his anger even further, Locke decided to let it die for now. It was something else that Archimedes was going to have to answer for.

"Very well, but we are training you," he pointed out again, almost forcing the issue. "Your strength is weaned from depression, and your house is lathered with dust. Your friend Lopper wants us to help you find your way, and that is what we intend to do."

Aleutian slumped his shoulders as he let out a painful sigh. "I hope you two succeed."

* * *


	3. The Constant Mourner

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Disclaimer: I acknowledge the Sega Characters to their original creators and also the characters of the comics and SATam to their aurthors, and they are not my own.**  
**

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**The Constant Mourner  
**

by: Mauser

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Julie-Su was in a very joyish mood...she was finally clean. Four long baths finally purged the diesel smell out from her fur. Granted she did miss Mathias and mourned his loss along with the Plunger; but she didn't miss the smell. With her top and belt adjusted to her liking, she half marched to the front door of the hut that she, Knuckles, and the Chaotix called home at the moment. Dodging the sofa that laid in the middle of the small living room, if she could call it that due to its cramped size, she stopped at the door and began to open it, wondering where the last missing member of the final crew of the Plunger was.

She was about to find out.

Aleutian's hand almost knocked Julie's head instead of the door when she opened it. He snapped his right hand back instantly so he wouldn't give the pink echidna a bad and painful greeting.

"Mornin'," he said with a smug grin.

"Hey! Was wondering where you went off to," Julie-Su said, returning the smile.

Aleutian nudged his eyebrows up as his eyes fell to her boots. "Yea, sometimes I ask myself the same question." His gaze slumped further towards the ground, "Umm, is my little brother around?"

"He's sleepin' in today."

"Huh, I can fix that," Aleutian joked, "Our father and Archy are here as well. He went off to find one of the Kings. Said he needed to have a talk with them about home. Afterwards, they will be cleaning up a mess."

"You I take it?" stated Julie-Su.

Aleutian smiled, his scar on his broad snout lifting up as his cheek muscles tensed, "Smart and beautiful. I think my brother has found a keeper."

"Darn right he does!"

She lead Aleutian to their small sanctuary that they called a room. She opened the door and exposed the full size bed at the far back of the room with Knuckles sawing logs in it. Aleutian walked over to the left of it, looking down at his sleeping brother who was laying on his left side under the white sheets and yellow comforter, his head pointing towards the door. The picture was almost reminiscent of the day from over sixteen years ago of Knuckles lying in his crib.

"Oh Prominent One," Aleutian slyly called out. "Hey little brother," he now whispered, shaking Knuckles's shoulder to arose him from his slumber.

The younger Guardian felt himself being shaken awake. When his eyes opening to the mid-morning sun that shown through the lone window of the room, his blurred vision caught the glimpse of another echidna hovering over him. When his eyes began to clear, he saw the scars, but this time, a smile was projecting with them.

"Hey...I didn't think you'd come back," Knuckles said with a joyful surprise.

"Like I said, I'm never leaving you again, dear brother," Aleutian replied, reenforcing what he had said on the Plunger. "Locke is here with me as well, but he is hopefully talking to Elias."

Knuckles sat up, throwing the sheets back that exposed his bare feet. "Is it true that you two are friends?"

"Yea. Been awhile since we've seen each other but yes, we are still friends."

"Far out," Knuckles said in awe.

Aleutian stepped back to give his brother some space before stating the obvious, "You like it when things come full circle?"

"Especially when it involves me," Knuckles answered as he slowly got out of bed. He stood on the wooden floor, stretching his back and arms in the air. "So, what are your plans for the day?"

Aleutian took a deep breath then sighed it out, slinging his duffel bag on the floor along with it, "Dad, Archimedes, and I need to have a long talk," he began, "then I'll go from there. Probably go back home for a little while. Need to keep an old promise."

"Why don't you stay here with us and help us fight?" came Julie-Su from the other end of the room.

"I might do that as well. I know some things that could greatly help you all training wise, I think. But from what I know of Sonic, Tails, and the rest of the Freedom Fighters, I'm not too sure if y'all could use me more than what is needed at home."

Knuckles placed his mitted hand on his brother's shoulder, "We can use people who are great leaders. That is something we all see in you, brother."

With grimaced face, Aleutian quickly replied, "I'm afraid you all are blind. If I possessed any traits for leadership, most of my friends would still be alive, and so would Mathias."

"But Aleutian," countered Knuckles, his voice softer, "you saved a bunch of people, all because you saw a problem and you got us up and motivated us to solve it. Death happens, but it is something that you take as a harsh lesson and continue on to victory."

Aleutian swallowed hard at his brother's words, "Coping with death hasn't been an easy thing for me lately."

Knuckles nodded his head with his eyes, "I can understand that."

"Anyways," Aleutian snorted with his emotions still relevantly present. He unzipped his bag and produced the wooden box that held his pistol. "I need you to hold on to this for me for awhile. Spare mags and bullets are in the bag, and that too, I am leaving with you as well."

Knuckles swallowed hard before he took the box. The weight surprised him. Most weapons that he had held before were somewhat light, but his brother's weapon had a good weight behind it. With the box exchanging hands, Knuckles remembered the one he was given from his mother. Placing Aleutian's pistol under his bed, he grabbed the cardboard box beside it.

"Mom said to give you this when I thought you were ready," he quoted. "I think you are."

Aleutian took the box from his brother's hands and looked at it. He tried to pry the box open but the brown tape stopped his efforts. Looking at his brothers mitted hands, Aleutian tilted the top of the box towards his brother and gave him a smile as if saying "please." Knuckles took his right hand and slid one of his sharp spikes down the center of the box, cutting the tap clean down the middle.

"Thanks..." Aleutian cut himself off when he opened the box and peered into it. Balancing his left hand on the bottom of the box, he placed his right hand in it and took out one of the contents. A clear plastic bag dangled in his hand. In it, a pair of white gloves. Looking back into the box, he could somewhat make out the outline of shoes from the shadow of the box.

Placing the box down, Aleutian pulled the bag open, releasing the sealed air to the outside world. He studied the thick white gloves for a moment before he pulled them on, tugging them taunt up to his wrists. The fit was a little loose, but not by much. Unlike his brother's mittens, Aleutian had all ten of his fingers to grace the air with. But what Aleutian saw at the end of his knuckles were two protruding spikes. He rubbed his hand over the other, feeling that the spikes were indeed a little sharp and very hard. Being like a little kid again with a new toy, Aleutian jabbed and punched the air, feeling his new gloves, plus his excitement, with every swing. This made Knuckles and Julie-Su smile.

Peaking back into the inside of the box, Aleutian reached in and plucked out the shoes he briefly saw at first. The sun exposed a pair of high tops that resembled much like his brothers in color and pattern; but instead of a yellow strip across the center, his was green. Sitting down at the edge of the bed, Aleutian unsnapped his boots and took them off. When he sunk his green socked feet into his new shoes, he felt more excitement come over him. He sported the same bolt laces that his brother had on his. Not knowing how to clamp them on, Knuckles gladly showed Aleutian how to. When they were snug, he stood up and began to pace the room.

"Need to get used to not having the ankle supports like I've got in my boots," he said with a smile. He took two more steps before giving out his final conclusion. "Need to also break them in and hopefully they will quiet down a little," he said, rolling his ankles around that produced the creaks of the new leather. "But other than that, I like 'em. In fact, I like it all."

Julie-Su saw Aleutian's darkness slowly begin to lift, and she was sure that Knuckles was seeing it as well. The new gloves and shoes that Aleutian now wore was a stark contrast as to how he first came to them. His brown jacket with the charging griffin on the back also made him as well, but it was the new digs that he wore that began to signified of who he was supposed to be; a Guardian.

Knuckles patted his brother on the shoulder once more. "You are now well on your way."

"_Sure beats the hell out of this morning,"_ Aleutian said to himself, only nodding at his brother's reply.

Knuckles turned to Julie-Su and walked up to her. He was about to kiss her until she stopped him dead in his lip locking tracks. "Nope, not with that morning breath you don't. Clean lips kiss these lips, sweaty."

"Can I at least get a hug?" he asked with a grin.

Julie-Su embraced her soul-equal briefly before he went on his way to freshen up. Aleutian felt joy but more so of grief when he watched the affair. Julie-Su could see the look in his eyes. "We shouldn't have done that in front of you, Aleutian. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he almost whimpered out as he stared down at the floor, "at least I know he is happy."

The pink echidna glided her way over to Aleutian, stopping short at the bed frame, "You really miss her don't you?"

"I don't just miss her Julie, I long for her everyday," he said with the entrance of tears coming down his face. "I have been having a real bad morning thus far. She cried out to me in my dreams last night, and I nearly killed myself this morning so I could be with her and away from myself."

"What made you stop," Julie asked next, almost gasping after hearing that Aleutian tried to take his own life.

Aleutian traced his birthmark across his upper chest as he looked onwards at the wooden floor. "Your boyfriend and our people. Every promise that I have made or the things that I have said that I would do, I have never gone back on. I wrote a letter to my parents the day that I ran away. I told them that I would help Knuckles in my own way, and so I have up until now. Even my Emee helped me in keeping my word to him. When she died, I think the old Aleutian died with her."

"I don't believe that," came back Julie-Su, "I think I see the old Aleutian still in you."

"And how do you know? You've never seen him?"

"Oh yes I have," Julie festered in a heartbeat, "I saw him come out on the sub, I saw him smile at his new shoes and gloves, and I saw him smile at my Knuckles. He isn't dead Aleutian...you've just misplaced him in your cold heart."

The image of his dark self reappeared from his dream, pointing his own pistol at his head. He questioned if he was battling that echidna within himself, or had it been a message to end his life altogether.

"Aleutian..." whispered Julie-Su, "of all the things I could say to help you, it would be to let go. You need to you for your sake."

He grimaced at her words before he stood up and faced her, "My weapon needs cleaning, if you'd be so kind. If you lift the blue liner from the box, there should be a cleaning kit and everything else you'll need underneath it."

With a small bow, he grabbed his backpack out of the black duffel bag, placed his journal and book in it, and took his tearful leave.

Julie-Su watched him walk out the door with her arms crossed, calling to him before he completely exited, "Aleutian...let go."

* * *

Walking around Knothole again bewildered Aleutian for a quarter mile. The first time he traveled here brought the chance encounter of his brother, but his motives were entirely different than what he shyly felt now. He felt as if he was a pilgrim in an unholy land, each step feeling as if he didn't belong there due to being some sort of heathen. 

After asking for directions from Amy, who carried her large hammer that made Aleutian almost chuckle at the sight, he trudged on to the castle, only to be stopped at the tall wooden doors by two sentries.

"Can we help you, sir," asked one of the beavers, to Aleutian's left. He stood at attention with a spear that leaned up against his right shoulder and arm. To Aleutian's right, a brown fox stood in the same manner, her tail almost as erect as her back.

"Looking to see King Elias," Aleutian replied with a polite voice for once, "and no, I don't have an appointment."

"We think he has been expecting you sir," came the fox this time with somewhat of a stern voice. "Orders from the watch this morning included to look out for a Guardian Echidna..."

"...But did one already pass?" Aleutian tested.

"Yes, but our instructions included scars of a warrior."

This put Aleutian aback for a brief moment, staring at the two armed sentries before he asked his next question, "So, why are you armed with spears and not weapons that could do more justice in case of an attack? Kinda like bows and arrows against the lightning?"

"Training sir!" snapped the beaver. "You might say we're new."

"Ah, okay. Well, don't let me get in the way then. Carry-on," said Aleutian with a smug face.

They opened the doors for him and gave their salutes by placing their free arms paralleled to the ground, their hands knifed as they settled them across the timbered staffs of the spears. Aleutian passed through the entrance hall, gazing at the tapestry of middle aged armour and paintings of kings and queens of old. Rounding to the right to the main hall, he traced his hand up against the wall, seeing the whole castle with his sight; seeing where his father and his friend Elias were. His slightly blurred tunnel vision brought forth the two, plus General Amadeus Prower behind them, walking and talking from a corridor down and to the left from Aleutian. He hurried his pace, pivoting his torso and head around at the entrance of the long hall. The trio stopped as they gained sight of Aleutian, with Elias breaking the halt after seeing his friend.

"We were just talking about your home, Aleutian," he said in a excited voice as he strolled up to Aleutian, clapping down on the scarred echidna's hand with his own.

"I imagined so," Aleutian nodded as he looked toward his father, returning the hard friendly handshake.

"Nice to see that you are still with us young man," complemented Amadeus as he stepped past Locke. He too shook Aleutian's hand as he held a scabbarded sword with his left.

"In the flesh at least," commented Locke as he smiled at his son.

Aleutian briefly gazed down at the decorative tiled floor before raising his head, "Yea, been having a rough day so far."

"We were about to make ours the same as well," said Amadeus with a solemn tone in his voice. "We were on our way to visit Maximilian and tell him of Mathias."

Elias gazed at Aleutian and frowned with his conclusion. He snapped his finger at Prower and pointed to the sword that the one-eyed fox clutched in his hand. He gave it to the acting King without hesitation.

"I think you should tell my father about Sir Mathias Drake. After all, you knew him better over the past years than us," Elias insisted with a soft voice.

Aleutian took the sword reluctantly, nodding in agreement before he turned and followed the trio to the suite where King Max was spending his ill days. With a simple knock from Elias, the door was answered by his mother. Alicia stood proud before them, but her eyes reigned with sadness.

"How is dad today, mother?" asked Elias.

"Better than yesterday. He is slowly gaining his strength back, but he still needs his rest," she replied with her eyes looming over her proud son.

"We need to speak with him, Your Highness." came Amadeus. "It's about an old friend."

Alicia opened the door fully to the let the four Mobians inside. She bowed her head at Locke but became stunned as Aleutian passed. He lowered his head as well in respect, but said nothing as he walked inside.

Elias pressed on to his father's bed. The ill-king laid in it with his arms out to his side, only picking them up to cough in his hand. Aleutian could detect the beginnings of bronchitis in Maximilian's forceful coughs.

"Father?" came Elias. "We have guests."

King Max turned his weary head over and gazed at Locke with a frail smile, "Aw, hello old friend. I take it you are here to take back your son?" he said in a voice that sounded as he looked.

"Not today, Your Majesty. I wish I was, but other matters have brought me here before you," Locke replied with a solemn bow.

Maximilian gazed passed Locke and saw Aleutian standing behind him, starring hard at his scars. "Knuckles, where on Mobius did you get those blemishes?"

Aleutian took in a deep breath of confidence that he hoped he still had left in him, and slowly made his way over the bed ridden King. He could smell the fowl odor from someone who hasn't had the strength to get up and cleanse their body with soap and water as he stepped closer to the lavish bed. The King's eyes twitched as they studied Aleutian, tracing the long scars across his muzzle and chest. With his mind fastly concluding that the Guardian he was gazing upon wasn't Knuckles, he smiled inwards knowing that he his health was getting better.

"So who is this one, Locke?" Max said, knowing full well that the younger Guardian that stopped in front of his bed had been to hell and back and opted for a second trip.

Aleutian answered first as he dropped down to one knee, holding his adopted father's sword in a presentation form in his hands. "Sir," he began in a soft commanding voice, showering the King and Sir Drake's name with honor, "my name is Aleutian, and I bring you the sword of your Knight; Sir Mathias Drake."

"Why is my old friend not here to give me this?" the King asked next in his quivering voice, more so from being sick than knowing what the sad news was.

Aleutian took a deep breath to calm his sadness. "He is with his son Chester and his wife Faith. He fell fighting to the end sir. His thoughts of you and your family with him to the bitter end."

Maximilian looked up to his son and Amadeus and said, "Help me sit up, please. I now have the strength to address this battered warrior formally."

With his weaned strength that he could see Aleutian also possessed, but not by illness of the body, Elias and the General helped him up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. They stood back along with Aleutian, but he was halted by a wave from King Max's hand.

"Come here lad," he said. Aleutian stepped closer and got back on his knee again. The Monarch traced his scars over his face, making Aleutian feel as if his blemishes were public property. He stared at the King with a proud look mixed with sadness and bitterness, watching the King's hand move around his face as he did so.

"Have you helped my family as well?" Max asked next, smelling the tall tell odor of the diesel fuel that still lingered over Aleutian's fur. "I still remember that smell from the time we launched my Plunger, so please don't lie to me."

"That was never my intention sir," Aleutian softly replied, his statement striking a hidden nerve in his father who just watched in his silence. "I served with Mathias and his crew for seven patrols, sir."

The old squirrel Monarch twisted Aleutians head over and looked at his severed lock, then asked in the same sincere but breathless voice, "Where is he buried? I would like to at least pay tribute to my lost friend and knight."

"The sea, with his body entombed in the iron coffin of the Plunger," Aleutian said in a small quivering voice. His face soon tightened with more bitterness over the thought that he couldn't have saved him. But the end result did buy them time to escape the floundering sub. _"One life for the lives of many,"_ Aleutian painstakingly thought to himself.

Max released his weak grasp from Aleutian. The scarred echidna still kept his fragile emotional attention to the King, his face still painted with a mix of sadness and a touch of bitterness.

"I can only fathom what you have done by the looks of your scars. They tell me that you have seen your fair share of death, and from the looks of your face and body that are littered with the signs of depression, Death has claimed the people that have mattered most in your young life. But yet, you kneel and stand proud before me. Tell me young Guardian, do you wear these blemishes as if they were medals, or do you wear them as a sign that you are defeated in life?"

The King's words hit home to Aleutian. He never thought about them that way. He mostly saw them as a reminder of a promise that he has only halfway kept. But as medals or defeat? The question made him look to his inner self at that instant. Most people usually got accustomed to their scars over time, but for Aleutian, every time he looked at himself in the mirror or felt his long scar on his muzzle tense when he made a facial expression, it reminded him that he had triumphed over death with only his scars that he would carry for the rest of his life while his friends and his beloved lied in their graves. With that thought, they definitely weren't medals, but he also didn't feel that he was defeated in life either.

"Honestly Your Majesty, I don't know the answer to that," he replied after a long thoughtful pause.

Locke let out a sigh of relief after hearing the answer. He knew it didn't feel right to think it but, he was actually hoping for that answer. The Dark Legion wore their battle disfigurements and their cybernetic attachments and replacement parts as war trophies against his family. He was glad that Aleutian didn't have that same idea. Equally satisfied with the answer was that his son was looking for a way out from his cold depression. He then realized that the two toned eyed lop was right, Aleutian was finding a way out, and that he had already tried the easy way.

"Your Majesty," Locke proclaimed, "this is my eldest son, Aleutian. He ran away over sixteen years ago when he was just six sessions old."

"Are you proud of him, Locke?" asked the frail king, catching the elder Guardian off guard.

"I don't know Max. I don't know why I should be proud of him because he hasn't told me much of his past," Locke replied as he gazed at the back of his son. He could barely make out the painting under the backpack that Aleutian still had strapped on his back.

Max took in a deep trembling breath, "What else have you done Aleutian?"

Aleutian stood up but kept his head bowed to the ill King, "I have helped your family sir, so in turn, I could help mine in the end."

"And have you succeeded?"

Aleutian grimaced before he wept out his reply, "Up until two years ago."

Seeing Aleutian fall prey to his battered emotions, Elias, Amadeus, and Locke walked up behind the now crying echidna and took him by his arms and massaged his shoulders to comfort him.

"It's okay Guardian," came Amadeus. "We all loose our will and way sometimes, but it is how we get back that is important."

"That is something that we are going to find, no matter how long it takes," came Locke as he rubbed both of Aleutian's shoulder blades.

Aleutian nodded his head in agreement as he wiped the tears from his face. "I just don't know if I have the courage to bear the pain of telling what has happened to me and what I have done."

King Max looked up at Aleutian and gave him an assuring smile, "When your courage is better, please, come back and tell me about Sir Drake. I miss him and his son."

"I will sir. From the time that they saved me from the cold waters of the ocean, to the final dive of the Plunger."

"Good, now be on your way," commanded the King before he laid back down, "and I bid you good luck on your perilous journey. I know how depression can be the killer of souls."

* * *

Okay, so now we know what was on the box that Knuckle's mom gave him. Please leae your thoughts and reviews, tell me how I'm doing and how yu like the story. Next; why Aleutian was working for Ebony Hare. For all you Shadow fans out there...there's going to be a fight.

* * *


	4. When Dark Worlds Collide

* * *

I wanted to put Shadow in this arc somehow, I when I was thinking of how I wanted to take this story, I found a place. This won't be the pnly time you will see him in this, unlike Lopper. I have more plans for the Ultimate Life Form. But for now, get your game faces on after a little more history, and Fights On! 

Again: I own nothing of the SEGA and Sonic characters.

* * *

**When Dark Worlds Collide**

By: Mauser

* * *

Elias, Amadeus, and Geoffrey St. John brought the two echidnas in a meeting hall that was lavished with a long walnut table that had been naturally finished. This was Elias's first wish when he took over the duties as king from his father. He wanted to have more communications with his high command and listen to other Freedom Fighters who would stand in front of them, plus any other Mobians who had a tale to tell or had concerns for their own people. Meetings such as these were far too few though, and Elias hated the conclusion as to why...they were losing.

But now before them were two Guardians. One of which was Elias's lost friend and who had demons to cast out of his soul. And the other, Locke, probably wanting both his boys back, –one physically, the other mentally– and the Chaotix so they could retake the Island, Elias mused.

"Locke, I know you want Knuckles and his friends back," began Elias as he sat at the middle of the table beside Amadeus and St. John, "but we really need them here. Our fight has become desperate and we need all the help we can get. Plus, Knuckles possesses power that has been very beneficial to our cause to save Mobius from total oppression."

Locke nodded at the gathered Freedom Fighters, his hands clasped behind his back. "I know Elias, but, my people are suffering and dying because I don't have my son and his friends to fight _our_ enemies."

"Your people aren't the only ones who are dying!" retorted Geoffrey. "The world is reaped with death all because of Eggman and his cronies. But he is one man and if we can take him out and stop his war machine, the rest will be like dominos, just like before."

"But if the enemy gets a hold of the Master Emerald, unmeasurable power could be unleashed against us all and we will have no way to stop it!" pointed out Locke with a searing voice.

"Who do you have protecting it now since you are away?" came Amadeus. He too was informed of the civil war between the two sides of the Dark Legion. They went from helping to being occupied with their ideology of machinery and hatred towards each other.

"I have Lien-Da looking over things while I am gone. I hope she isn't getting sidetracked though with her battles. She is leading the Flame Legion against the Frost."

"And Doctor Finitevus?" inquired St. John with a gruff look, knowing that the grey echidna had broken loose from the Egg Grapes.

Locke paused before he replied, "I don't know his motives yet. I think he is trying to help, but his previous actions have said otherwise."

"You don't say, mate?" fired back St. John, the question coming out more as a statement.

"Motives are like paint father," stated Aleutian in a flat voice, "you don't know the true color until the paint dries."

"Speaking of which, what are yours?" asked St. John, squarely fixating his eyes at Aleutian. "After all, you were working with Ebony Hare."

"You were doing WHAT!?" Locke seethed out at his son. "That rabbit and Blackjack almost killed Julie-Su some years back...and you were WORKING for him!"

"Actually, they tried to kill her again a week and a half ago," came back Aleutian, his voice still flat. "I was using Ebony Hare as a tool to get to someone else. Ebony has his hands deep in the lemon juice trade." The room nodded at that statement. "Well, he too has people to report, pay money and restitution to so he can stay in business without being burned. Those people in turn have motives entirely different than the drug trade. They would like to see you all dead." The statment sent a cold shudder throughout the room. "So, they shell some of that money out to Robotnick to fund his war machine so their dreams can come true." Aleutian took a steady deep breath before letting out his next sentence. "You all don't know how much of a fight you are in for."

"How big is this movement?" asked Amadeus who was now inquisitive about what Aleutian had explained.

"I don't know now. Two years ago, I could've given you a definite answer. But now, with me being out of that line of fighting for a while, I don't know," Aleutian sighed. "But I do know that it is bigger than it was before."

"I take it you haven't been on the up and up with this?" asked St. John.

"I've been a recluse for too long. Just last week I found out that my home is being occupied."

"And that is something that needs to be changed," Locke added in a gruff voice.

Geoffrey shifted his gaze back to Aleutian after nodding to Locke, "I take it, mate, that Blackjack isn't the first living being you have killed before?"

Locke snapped his head over to his son, "You killed Blackjack!?"

"And a few others father," Aleutian added to his father's protest. "Commander, you and I are somewhat alike. We are highly trained and we put duty above all others except family. Our difference however, lies in our mind set and training. Have you killed before?" St. John just nodded. "Hmm, my brother is under the impression that you haven't."

"And the lad can keep on thinking that way. It is something that I don't like to speak of."

Aleutian nodded at Geoffrey's words, "Neither do I. No one likes to talk about the people they've killed; only that they _have_ killed. It sets us apart from the rest of the innocent world. But _you_ mostly go and arrest people who have betrayed their kind with deadly force as a last option. As for me and my Emee," Aleutian started with a sigh, "that option was very flexible. Sometimes we would capture people and send them your way via a third party, or we handed them to someone who didn't follow a strict code of honor and ethics to do interrogations. Other times, we would just flat out depart their souls from the world. I didn't do the assassinations, but I did help."

The way Aleutian said his last thought made Locke do a double take on his son.

"Don't mind me asking, but why not?" came General Prower.

"My Emee insisted that I should never tarnish the honor that my family has over something like that. So, she did that line of the cold work instead of me, while I backed her up."

"How did you take that, Aleutian? I mean, lying your head next to her after she did something like that?" asked Locke in a soft melo voice.

Aleutian sighed before he replied. "It took me awhile, honestly, but every time I looked at her lying peacefully asleep beside me, I didn't care what she had done. She didn't like it, I didn't like it, but it was something that we both understood that sometimes it had to be done. But she respected me and for who I was. When we got home, we talked about it and let out our feelings about it, but we never lost sight of our big objective and our love for each other."

"And what was your objective?" asked Elias, who was very intrigued.

"To help your family end the war so my brother and my kind could never be affected by it. It was something I vowed to do a long time ago," Aleutian said with his voice starting to quiver.

"So what did _you_ do?" asked Locke.

"_We_ freed Mobians that were captured and were going to be sold as slaves to Robotnick to be robotized. We also did recon' missions to get intel' for other resistance fighters, and sometimes, we broke Robotnick's and his cronies toys in the process."

"So, you were a guerilla force you might say?" came Amadeus.

"Not really, and mercenary doesn't come to mind either. We never did it for money. And we never did it full-time either. Just whenever situations would arise that we figured we could help out with, we'd go and do them."

"How many people have you killed?" asked Geoffrey.

The question sent shivers down Aleutian's spin, but the look that he gave St. John said different. "I never have put notches on my gun, Commander. _You_ of all people should know that. That's what separates us from the cold-blooded killers. We don't count the people we've killed. We just do it as a means to an end." _"But there are three I would love to clean their red and purple blood from the grooves of my pistol."_ Aleutian added to himself, think his little comment would be safe in his mind, locked away in his brain-waves.

But Locke heard it all. _"What three?"_ he asked in the air, but his gaze said it all as he looked at his son who never saw it; he just kept his attentive gaze at the trio that sat before them.

Amadeus leaned forward in his seat and clasped his hands in front of him. "I am curious as to your scars. Are those from your operations?"

"No sir," Aleutian breathed out, "The ones on my face were from a battle where I lost most of my friends. The one on my chest was done by a Swat Bot over a year and half ago, along with my severed lock. They tortured me to give up the location of the Master Emerald and the location of Knothole."

"Dear Aurora!" Elias gasped in utter shock. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

Aleutian looked hard at the ground, "I did. They put me under a truth serum as a last resort, and they asked, and I told. But they never had the chance to radio Eggman."

"I take it that you terminated them, son?" asked General Prower.

The Guardian looked at his new gloves, their twin knuckled spikes piercing the air as he rolled his hands into a fist. "Wish I had these at the time. Their metal skin is no cake walk to break through. Slashed up my hand pretty well, I might add."

Elias spoke next, "This battle you spoke of... what all happened during the fight?"

Aleutian cocked his head to the side, for once, turning his gaze away from them. The pain that he feared was on the verge of coming back to haunt him. "I don't want to talk about it." he said, hearing the echoes of screams from that rainy and blood wrenching day. "I can't believe that I actually had the courage to even tell you all that it even happened."

Locke reached over and squeezed his son's shoulder, knowing why Aleutian didn't want to divulge his nightmare from the past. "But can you at least tell them something?" he asked in an even voice.

Aleutian looked over at his father then stared past him to the left wall of the chamber. On it were several maps of Mobius: one was the actual world itself and others that were blown up portions of it. Aleutian walked over to one that showed Knothole City and the surrounding lands. With his new gloves, he punched the map with a lone protruding knuckle. "You'll find your answers there," he stated in a gruff quivering voice. Where he marked on the map with his enraged punch was not more than three hundred miles southwest from Knothole.

Two thuds suddenly came from the large wooden doors. St John smirked a crooked grin as he looked at his watch. "About bloody time. Someone else we need to talk too. Come in!" he shouted towards the door.

The hard metal thud of the steel door handle sounded as the person on the other end turned them. When the right door creaked open, Aleutian's gaze suddenly beamed on the black hedgehog, his white furred chest burning Aleutian's resolve deeper in his soul. With one look from the hedgehog's ruby red eyes, Aleutian found himself stepping towards him. All forethoughts of why the black hedgehog with red trim that ran down his quills was overshadowed when Aleutian only brought one thing to his mind...enemy.

"Hello traitor!" he growled.

Shadow stopped dead when Aleutian's words fell upon his pointed ears. "What did you just call me Knuckles?" he said in the same growl.

Shadow's question never registered in Aleutian's head. Instead, he rolled his right fist out and nailed Shadow across the jaw, sending the hedgehog to the tiled floor. Elias, Amadeus, and St. John shot up from their chairs as Locke ran over to Aleutian to hold him back from going for round two.

"Knuckles you idiot, I'm on your side!" Shadow shouted as he tried to gather himself off the floor.

"Unfortunately for you, I am not my brother you rotten liar."

"He's not lying Aleutian," shouted St. John, his words stopping Aleutian before he kicked Shadow back down to the ground with his new shoes.

Locke stepped up to the back of Aleutian and pulled him away from Shadow. "What is your problem, son? You don't just go and start wailing on someone without a good reason."

"I was hunting him, father. He was the one I was looking for with Downtown Ebony Hare's connections. This dirt bag is a key player to Eggman."

"Not anymore, Aleutian," said St. John. "He is helping us now. He knows some things about Eggman's operations that we can use. So lay off him, mate."

Shadow helped himself up from the ground, throwing his red eyes towards Aleutian. His hard gaze was returned in the same manner by the hard breathing Guardian. Aleutian shifted his shoulder that released Locke's grip from it, putting himself in a defensive stance right off. Shadow and the rest saw this.

The hedgehog soon followed suit. "Want to go around the world?" he said in a stern, fighting voice. Aleutian squinted his face as he lowered himself with his knees, baring his scars like they were teeth. The look made Shadow step back a minuscule pace.

"_What the hell have you been through?"_ he thought. _"From the looks, Hell itself."_

"Stop this at once!" ordered Elias.

Amadeus soon chimed in. "Both of you, stand down now." The one eyed fox then turned to the elder echidna. "With you permission Locke, I would like to question your son and Shadow about this matter."

"Don't take too long. I need Aleutian as he is," replied Locke, his eyes narrowing at his hard breathing son.

Amadeus took the underlying message with a nod. "Commander, this is your line of work. Take these two to your office and get as much history from them as you can."

St. John drew his body to a stiff attention. "Yes Sir! Both of you blokes, out the door!" he ordered as he pointed to the double doors. Shadow made a slight gruff as he locked stepped out of the room. Aleutian just stood his ground as he watched the black hedgehog leave.

"Go son!" Locke said, reenforcing St. John's order. "You need to tell what you know about Shadow and about the people who are plotting against them. It will help your brother."

With a lasting look, Aleutian nodded his tempered face at the trio and turned to leave, his tail hanging low to the ground as he walked out with St. John in tow.

Elias walked up beside Locke, his blue cloak trailing along the tile floor.

"I'm sorry about this, Your Majesty," said Locke in an even voice. "I should have seen this coming somehow."

"We all didn't know, Guardian, " sighed Elias. "Your son is not himself. I, for one, see this. This definitely isn't the Aleutian I remember."

"I know: a war, a loss, and sixteen years changes a person, Sire."

"Yes, I agree, but from what Sonic and the rest have told me about him during their patrol...Aleutian was finding his old self. From how they described his attitude after the first day, it reminded me of the Aleutian that I remember from my childhood back on Angel Island."

Locke gave out a small smile with Elias's words. "I thank you for telling me that, Your Majesty. It gives me great hope for help my son." He stiffened his smile and gaze at Elias when he turned half way around at the ground squirrel. "Now, about your old home..."

* * *

The afternoon sun made Aleutian's and Shadow's tempers even hotter, never minding the mid-summer's blistering heat that scorched the open field that they grudgingly walked across. With every step that Aleutian took while seeing the black hedgehog over his left shoulder, he couldn't help but still feel discontent towards who he thought was still a traitor. After all, it were traitors who helped cut the deep scars on his face, killed his friends, and most painfully important, killed his Emi-La and his unborn child.

"So how fast are you going to switch sides again?" Aleutian growled under his breath, only letting Shadow and himself hear.

"Shut-up!" snapped Shadow. "You have no idea what I've been through."

"Oh yes I do. You've been picking up Eggman's laundry..."

Geoffrey snapped around, his beret almost coming off his head as he did so. "Hey, will the two of you knock it off! We'll get both sides of this in due time. Just shut-up and keep walking."

Aleutian's angered face still burned into St. John, even after the skunk had turned his back around and marched onward. With a hard nudge with his left elbow, Aleutian jabbed Shadow in the arm, smack dab in the middle of the hedgehog's biceps. The tender spot that he nailed, sent a shooting pain through Shadow's nerves that only enraged him further.

"That's for selling your own kind out," Aleutian snuffed.

Shadow returned the gesture with a hard shove, driving his shoulder into the echidna's with a force that almost sent Aleutian to the soft, grassy ground. Recovering his momentum in an instant, Aleutian quickly moved towards Shadow, fixing his burning blue eyes on his next target of the hedgehog's anatomy. Shadow cocked his right arm back, preparing to send Aleutian a message of why he shouldn't tangle with the Ultimate Life Form. But his telegraphed move only made Aleutian smile inwards, knowing full well that Shadow was giving him a tool to use...his right arm.

Shadow sent his fist flying towards Aleutian's scarred face. With a quick dash forward and to the right of Shadow, Aleutian grabbed the hedgehog's assaulting fist halfway through its projected path. Using the forward motion of Shadows strike, Aleutian brought him over just enough to help expose Shadow's left thigh. Bracing his right hand over the hedgehog's shoulder, he dug his right knee into Shadows thigh, crushing the nerve that ran from his leg, up and over a spot between hist first rib and armpit, and up to his neck.

With a loud groan of air being expelled from Shadow's lungs, his right leg collapsed under him briefly before he shook the pain off. As the shooting pain became numb, his red eyes became slits as his resolve and anger came to full bare. Using his chaos control, he triggered the thrusters in his shoes that propelled him forward, driving his head right into Aleutian's chest. _"Fights on, chum!"_

Geoffrey turned around just in time to see Aleutian knee-spike Shadow in his thigh. He was about to raise his voice in protest again, until the black hedgehog thrusted Aleutian forward, driving the Guardian into the ground with only a few meters of flight. They almost careened into the side of a hut if the friction against Aleutian's backpack, his body, and the ground hadn't stopped them. The thrust drove a small trench into the ground that led to where they stopped.

Aleutian was now staring hard into the eyes of a now enraged hedgehog who was breathing hard and had his full body weight on top of the echidna's chest. "You yield chum?" asked Shadow through his teeth.

The Guardian flashed a crooked smile before he clasped his hands together over his chest. Spreading them apart with his forearms making impact against Shadow's, he knocked the hedgehog's arms out to the side that caused him to drop down on top of Aleutian. But before he went head long into the Guardian's birthright, Aleutian fired his right fist straight up at Shadow's chest, testing his new knuckled gloves at the hedgehog's sternum. The hard strike sent the black hedgehog flying into the air briefly before he stumbled over the ground with his fast moving feet, attempting to stay topside as he back paddled under his momentum.

Aleutian shot up from the ground, thrusting his right knee under him that propelled him upwards, keeping his hands out in front of him in a very ridged defensive stance on the balls of his feet. Feeling the resistence that his pack was giving him, he quickly brushed it off of his shoulders and kicked it away from him, keeping his fixed gaze at the white chest of Shadow all the while. Just then, a feeling rushed over him: one that he hadn't felt in ages. His inner warrior was comeing back out. It showed as he let the feeling loose across his face with a defiant gaze.

It was only a matter of time before Shadow closed the ten foot gap that separated them, hurling his quilled body at Aleutian at a feverish rate. With a quick hop to the side, Aleutian flexed his right arm outwards and clothes lined Shadow, but the move almost dislocated Aleutian's arm as the hedgehog's force carried on through his impended direction. The strain of the overextend joints of his shoulder was painted on Aleutian's face as he was spun around from the momentum. Before he could get around to caress his shoulder, Shadow got the upper hand in recovery and jolted at Aleutian, plowing head long into his chest again and hurling him towards the tree line.

The echidna watched as Shadow drew further away as he floated in the air. He tried desperately to gain enough air and thermals to glide back to the ground without causing to much pain in the landing. But his efforts ended when his back collided against a wide oak tree. The harsh pain that shot through his spinal column expelled every once of air from his lungs. Fighting the searing pain and the urge to breathe, Aleutian brought his head up to see Shadow striding across the grassy void that separated the two, his red eyes mixed with attentiveness and an easy victory. With his lungs finally coming to grips with breathing again, Aleutian stood up, his face showing that he was far from being beaten.

"Both of you, stop this now!" barked St. John from the sidelines.

In perfect unison, Shadow and Aleutian voiced their replies at the skunk who was all but a figment of their imaginations.

"SHUT-UP!"

* * *

Amy heard the groans and growls of a fight nearby, but finding it seemed to be a misadventure all its own. Following the gruff pitches through the maze of huts that laid entombed under a small thicket of trees, she found herself in the small opening right behind St. John. She was about to say something to the commander when a speeding black and red blur went in front of her, tossing the wind up enough to make her skirt flutter in the induced breeze. As quick as he came, Shadow was shot back across the ground, tumbling tail over elbows. Aleutian had landed a perfect punch across his chest.

"Oh, you're gonna pay for that!" Shadow fired off as he got up from the ground, quickly brushing away the small clumps of grass that were stuck to his quills.

Aleutian squeezed his fists tighter as he crab-walked forward, extending the protruding spikes out further from his new gloves. "I still owe for my debts," he said with a crooked grin, baring his scars.

As the two went at it again with Aleutian desperately remembering his fancy footwork and grapples, Amy quickly approached Geoffrey, her hammer slung over her right shoulder. "Are you gonna stop this?"

"Be my guest!" replied Geoffrey in a rough voice. "Unless you know someone else who can break this up."

Amy growled with her eyes, "I think I have an idea."

* * *

"...So, can he help us?" asked Sally Acorn, her gaze crossed along with her arms at a certain Fire-Ant. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and a good majority of the Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix looked on at Archimedes as well, waiting for his answer. She had called them all in for a debriefing from their last mission on the Plunger; plus, give out new information that they had missed during the week. It was all going somewhat smoothly until Archimedes popped in and wanted to talk to Knuckles. Needless to say, Sally wasn't thrilled but, surprisingly neither was Knuckles. As Archy chronicled that morning's events about Aleutian, all Sally could snort out was, "Oh...him," before the four armed ant continued. He did tell Knuckles's of what his brother was capable of, but seeing that Aleutian's actions didn't quite fit the words that Archy was putting forth, Sally shrugged off the comments until Archy said something else.

"He helped you all during the final conflict with Robotnick-Prime. If it wasn't for him, possibly more of your people would have either been killed or robotosized before Sonic could have dealt the final blow. He also knows a lot about the underground movement...on both sides at that."

"Yea, Sal. The Drake mentioned this to us after I got him stirred up a little enough for him to even talk," winked Sonic. "I just couldn't let Rad Red here get lied too about his brother from someone that knows more about him than us."

Knuckles turned his attention to Sonic and grinned. "You sly blue hog. And to think I was about to deck you for that."

Sonic leaned back in his chair and gave out his trade mark grin. "Your welcome too, Knux!"

Sally propped herself against the table behind her and asked the same question once more. "But can he help us in the end? His attitude, his disregard for chain of command, and his way with the gun; I have mixed feelings about him."

"And rightfully so, Princess." replied Archimedes. "The truth is, " he began with a somber tone, "I was there when the old Aleutian was replaced by this dark monster. But what you all have to understand is that he is lost, not dead. "

"So why did he change?" Sally asked with a gruff voice. She realized in an instant that her tone didn't fit the reason. Somber and cold stares were shot to her from around the room.

"A girl named Emi-La was killed in a pitched battle that was more or less a trap to wipe out most of the resistence fighters. I don't know the major particulars, but; she was his equal, much as Julie-Su is to Knuckles, but stronger. And she died in his arms." Archy took in a deep breath before he expelled his next thought. "And my eyes still burn with the pain of that sight." He shifted his dwarf stance towards Knuckles. "Lad, if I had gone back on my word to Mathias, either you or your father would have gone to him in an instant, but the old dingo didn't want your family to possibly scar him somehow, even more than how he was at the time. From the bitter distrust that Aleutian had for Locke, Mathias saw something that probably would have never happened to begin with. If anything Knuckles, I am to blame for Aleutian's suffering."

"There is something else that we haven't brought to this discussion," said Julie-Su, who sat beside Knuckles the whole time. "I think we all saw something in him after Dr. Quack removed some Swat Bot armor from his back."

"How so?" inquired Sally with her arms still crossed.

"He smiled," pointed out Tails from the back row of tables.

"And he apologized for going off on me about not doing my job," added Rogue from the far left of the front table.

"That makes two of us," pointed out Julie-Su, fixating her main points back on the table. "Plus, he took command when a situation would arise. He would order us, but the way he did it at times, made us obey those orders in a flash and without a second thought. Some of his decisions could have been made better, but I think he has been out of the game and out of practice for awhile. From the time I was with the Dark Legion and now with helping you all and my equal, I have seen great leaders, and I am confident in myself to judge people who are. I think Knuckles' brother possesses those traits somehow."

Sally observed nods being floated around the room. "How certain are you of this?"

"Let's say this: if he was back to his old self like we partly saw on our last mission...I would follow him into battle, hands down!"

Sally was taken aback by the pink echidna's observations, and see the confirming nods being tossed around the poorly lighted room, she realized that she wasn't seeing something that the rest were.

"Okay, change of subject: did Rotor actually down a bot?" she asked with a smile.

The overweight walrus stood up with a slight twinkle in his eye, "I sure did, Sally!"

"Okay Rotor, I need witnesses to confirm your kill..."

Sally was cut off when a sudden blast of light illuminated the darkened room. Amy rushed through the door while dragging her large hammer across the floor. "You guys!" she announced out of breath, "there's an echidna getting his tale handed to him by Shadow!"

Sonic sprang forward from his seat, rolling his eyes. "This wouldn't be our scarred echidna we were just chatting about?"

"Oh boy!" snorted Knuckles as he shot up from his chair. "Archy, get my father. Amy, where are they?"

"By the second huddle of huts near the castle. That is if they are still standing!"

"Archy, tell my dad to meet me there. We need to break this up." With a quick nod and a flash, the fire-ant vanished into thin air.

"Dark versus Dark, who's gonna win?" asked Sonic almost with a chuckle.

"Do we really want to find that out?" came Sally, more so as a statement than a question.

"Hey, it's just a thought, Sal!"

* * *

"...In a way, I am ill-prepared for this," Locke solemnly admitted as he stood before Amadeus and Elias, who were also standing. "Honestly, I need to be back on the Island so the emerald isn't stolen, but, his mother sent me here to help him...and I owe it to her."

"If you need Knuckles for this..." came Elias but only to be cut off by a wave of a gentle hand from Locke.

"No, Your Majesty. It will be me and Aleutian. What I really need are rations for at least three maybe four days."

"That can be arranged," Amadeus nodded. "Anything else?"

"Just wish you all would adhered to my request to..."

Locke stopped his undying plea when a sudden poof of purple smoke erupted over his left shoulder. The smoke was replaced by the air and Archimedes, who wore a dire look upon his face. "Locke, Aleutian is fighting Shadow."

"What!?" fired off Locke.

"It's happening now!"

Locke grumbled as he turned to the two bewildered Mobians. "I need to see this!" he proclaimed.

"How bout' stopping it all together," countered General Prower. "This _in_ fighting needs to stop if we ever want to see victory."

Locke nodded his head ever so slightly. "I understand, but I need to gauge my son in his actions."

"By a fight?" Elias shrilled with his protest.

"No, not by a fight, but how he takes defeat in front of his new friends and his family." The looks he got from Elias and the one eyed fox, asked him if he was from a different world. "Aleutian will not win this. His strength is withered from depression, and from what my old friend here _has_ told me: Aleutian lacks the powers to win over Shadow." Locke nodded his head through the short pause, "Why, I am certain that he will not win."

* * *

Shadow wasn't even breaking a sweat under his black silk fur. The last thrust he gave Aleutian, --that the echidna was still getting up from-- Shadow felt his digits align between the spaces of Aleutian's ribs. And as of yet, the Guardian hadn't dealt a single blow that Shadow couldn't shake off before he launched himself back toward his opponent. None of his real abilities had yet come into play, saved for his shoes and speed. The light skirmish, if even Shadow would call it that, didn't have a need for them. He was winning against a punching bag that needed a little bit more sand to even strain his muscles.

Breathing hard and feeling the physical strain of the fight, Aleutian slowly rose from the ground only to see a black blur speed past him, knocking him down with a light jab once again. The fall hurt more than the shove as Aleutian grunted from the impact. Muscles that he hadn't used for a long while announced their protests in pain as he lumbered back to his shaky feet. He hovered back over the balls of his feet again as he got himself back into his defensive position. But as he lowered his body weight back towards the ground, flexing his knees over his toes that were pointed away from each other, Aleutian's right foot began to shudder from the strain of his ligaments and muscles that were all but exhausted. But he didn't care.

Throwing his attention all around him, he looked for the black hedgehog, only to come up short with the huts, the trees, and one mighty peeved off skunk. St. John was soon joined by a mob that slowly trickled around the newly declared battlefield.

With a blunt impact on his back, Aleutian was yet again thrown to the ground. Before he made contact head long onto the grassy surface, Aleutian rolled over on his right shoulder, dissipating most of the energy to the ground rather than his torso. Completing the roll, he stood up and pivoted around in a small circle, trying his best to anticipate Shadow's next move. With his sight again coming up short of the menacing hedgehog, he was starting to get an idea of what Shadow was doing. Unfortunately for him, that idea came too late. Another hard thrust sent Aleutian back to the ground, this time grinding dirt into his eyes.

Knuckles arrived in time to see his brother get knocked down again, only to see him stagger to his feet, trying desperately to clear his eyes. With his brother now blind and vulnerable, Shadow made his move. Jetting his shoes that sent him across the ground in a hard sprint, the hedgehog connected his right fist onto the left side of Aleutian's face, sending the echidna whirling in the air for a brief moment before he settled back to the ground with a hard thud. Watching Aleutian making a dire attempt to get back up, looking almost like a sloppy push-up from the ground, Knuckles took a determined step forward. He only got two paces when a hand came across his right shoulder.

"Stop," said Locke, "let him continue if he wishes."

Knuckles looked over his shoulder to see his dad. His grey beard and eye brows, along with his tribal robe, embalmed his resentment even more with his father. "He's defeated, father..."

"...Only by strength, son. Not his will," retorted Locke in a somber tone.

"You want him to loose completely!?" bolted Knuckles, his hands molding into fists. He only got a nod from his father. Archimedes stood on his father's left shoulder, staying quiet through the whole ordeal.

Aleutian's body ached head to toe. His vision started to go double, especially from the last hit. He swallowed hard but only to find a salty taste in his mouth. Spitting at the ground, he saw his purple blood replace the emerald grass below him. With a flick of his tongue, the stinging feeling inside his left lower lip resonating in his brain as he tasted more of his life's elixir in his mouth. Instead of bringing forth the thought of defeat to Aleutian, the taste of his blood only fed his warrior soul that was hungry for the fight.

With his warrior senses now afoot, he heard the sounds of Shadow's shoes coming from the right. The sound was all there, a faint mix between a rocket engine and a jet engine. The early whistling sound triggered Aleutian's next move. He stepped forward and pivoted backwards to the left, extending his left elbow out at the same time. Shadow connected with it, throwing him in a backwards somersault that lasted for three twirls in the air, landing face up to the speckled white and blue sky.

The hedgehog quickly shot up, but only to turn around just in time to see Aleutian thrust the tips of his fingers right at his chest. As the echidna's digits made contact, he dug them further into the white chest of Shadow, bending his knuckles at the fingers as he drove onwards. A fraction of a second later, he morph his finger's into a fist that bore his new weapons on his knuckles. The spikes shot a searing pain as they scraped Shadow's breast plate. Before he could back off from it, Aleutian followed through with the strike that sent Shadow floating in the air briefly before gravity took its course. With a hard thud and a sharp grunt that followed, Shadow felt his body reeling from the single blow that Aleutian had delivered. As the sharp aches began to soothe in his head, Shadow quickly concluded that the echidna he was fighting now wasn't the same one from fifteen seconds ago.

Even through the aches and the pains, Aleutian found the motivation and strength to rush towards Shadow, giving the hedgehog no chance to get back on his feet. Shadow sat up in time to see Aleutian fall on top of him, bracing his fall with his knee that drove into the hedgehog's ribs. With the pain being driving further into sense from Aleutian's, and with his head being thrusted past his shoulders towards the ground from Aleutian's hand, the Ultimate Life Form changed his attitude of going easy, to one who was staring down at defeat and didn't like it.

"Do you yield?" seethed out Aleutian through his bloodied teeth.

Shadow turned his gaze to the stunned onlookers, only seeing a much older echidna behind Knuckles nodding his head at _him_. He couldn't fathom as to what he was gesturing about, but what he did know was that this echidna, this Guardian, was about to get the nastiest surprise of his life. Moving his left hand, which Aleutian neglected to hold down, Shadow channeled his powers of chaos control and wielded a green bolt at point-blank range into Aleutian's chest.

Aleutian felt as if his body was being shocked by a bolt of lightening. He had taken plasma hits before in the chest cavity, but the hit he just took made laser fire feel like a cake walk compared to what Shadow just dealt. He sailed upwards in the air, tracing a distance of over two meters before he sank to the ground, his face painted in a state of shock and pain. Aleutian bounced twice and rolled once with every slam and tumble producing a grunt and a moan.

As he settled on his left side from his painful trek back across the field, his eyes fell onto Shadow, who slowly got up with a crooked smile that glowed in the afternoon sun. With a grumble and a stare of fierce resolve, Aleutian brought himself off the ground again, his body protesting every move from his joints and muscles as he tried to stand. It was then that Knuckles had had enough. Ignoring his father's hand over his shoulder, Knuckles brushed it off as he trudged forward to his brother. Aleutian was about to make a very slow charge towards Shadow when Knuckles put an end to that idea. Placing his right hand on Aleutian's chest, which was brewing a small hint of green smoke from it, he stood in front of his brother and stared hard into his eyes.

"Someone hold back Shadow!" ordered Princess Sally.

"It's not me who started this," said Shadow, crossing his arms and staring a cold stare at the two brothers, narrowing his eyes at one in particular. "Battling weak ones isn't what I call sport."

"I'M NOT WEAK!" shouted Aleutian over his labored breaths.

Knuckles thrusted half his body weight towards Aleutian, stopping him from running him over. "Cut it out, Aleutian! Shadow won't think twice about killing you."

"I don't care," Aleutian fired back, wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve, cleaning the blood away.

Knuckles sank his gaze even further into his brother's. "What are you trying to do, kill yourself?"

"Yea!" Aleutian replied back with murder in his eyes. "I already tried it once today, and I'm up for round..."

Knuckles cut his brother short with a very hard slap across his scarred face. The blow almost sent Aleutian over onto his side, but Knuckles held him up. "Don't you EVER say that to me again!" he shouted at his brother, looking up at him from the half inch difference in height as he grasped at the flaps of Aleutian's jacket. "I've come this far to know about you and who you are, but yet, you want to rob me of knowing the true you," Knuckles screamed out, almost in tears. "You promised me that you weren't going to leave me again, but here you are now, ready to kill yourself over something that doesn't seem worth dying for. Don't do this to me, Aleutian. Don't do this to _us_."

With his resolve and rage disappearing over his brother's words, Aleutian's battle hardened feelings were diminished to anguish in two heart beats. The staring contest, if there ever was one, was concluded as Aleutian looked away from his brother in defeat. It showed all over his face. At that moment, he didn't feel like he was an older brother. Instead, he belittled himself with his own feelings of selfishness; to be rid of his pain and to be back with his beloved. If death was how he was going to solve it, he was willing to take that step in anyway possible...until now. His brother had yet saved him again: this time in the flesh instead of in his thought. And with that now burning in his mind, it overpowered all of his aching muscles and joints to breathed out something to Knuckles that he should have said the first time they met.

"I'm sorry," he let out in a stern and quivering voice, his shoulders hunching forward in a show of total defeat. "I'm sorry I put you in second place over my defiance to Locke and my love for Emee." With a intake of air that signified that he was about to ball, he turned away to hide his shame.

Knuckles grabbed him by his shoulder and turned him around. "Brother," he began with a confident stare, "if I was in your shoes, I would have done the same thing. If your love for her is as powerful as I see it today in her absence...I would have done the same thing and lived with it. The running stops Aleutian. There is no shame in what you have done. It is what you do now that will have repercussions that I may never forgive." And with a hard moments stare, Knuckles hugged Aleutian with an iron grip, holding him as if he was afraid that he would lose him again.

"What's his problem?" asked Shadow as he paced the field towards Sonic.

Instead of fixing his attention towards Shadow, Sonic looked the other way...dead on at Sally. "He lost someone, and in the end, the guy lost himself."

"What, is his past haunting him?" asked Shadow with a surprising sincere tone in his voice.

"More like hurting him."

* * *

So what did you all think of the fight. Nothing spectacular? Well, I didn't want Shadow to kill him, just drive a point home how Aleutian is weakened with depression. Kinda added that notion when Shadow filt the spaces in Aleutian's rib cage. Next chapter will bring light to what Aleutian had been doing after the fall of Robotnick Prime.

* * *


	5. Eyes of Control

* * *

For awhile I wanted to keep most Aleutian's past in a way, a secert. But I started to realize that it only made it harder for me to write it out. So I decided to move on with what he did during that two year span after his equal's death. Also will introduce some characers by name and action only in this, but not many.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the creators of Sonic and all his friends.**  
**

* * *

**Eyes of Control  
**

By: Mauser

* * *

A half hour passed and Aleutian sat idly on the ground, his legs crossed under him and his back turned away from all of Knothole. With another pull of grass from the ground, which he rolled in his gloved hands, he thought of himself, his family, in particular his brother, Emi-La, and the company who seemed to want to keep him. All this began to overshadow his aching body. Every now and then, his biceps would twitch from the brutal strain that he put them through. It showed that he had never kept up with his training, letting writing and his depression consume him as a daily work out.

He wanted night to fall at that instant. He found peace in the darkness; the glimmering stars, the still air, the quiet sounds as wildlife slept in their nooks and crannies of their habitat called Mobius. It all felt so surreal in a world that was engulfed by war, and yet, in him as well. The war within himself seemed to be a losing one. He accepted defeat several months ago with what he thought he was: dark, cold, and lonely. But his white crest on his upper chest began to brighten, piercing the burning truth into his heart of who he was supposed to be...a Guardian, the same one that Emi-La had always fell in love with and felt safe with.

His friends wanted him to come in from the cold. They wanted him warm and back to his old self. It didn't happen. With each passing week that rolled into months, he stayed secluded in his house; a cave where the monster slept, weeping in his slumber. Aleutian had tried to go out and fight once, taking his Corsair to the skies, that was now busted up in his basement, to make a difference in the war. In his quest in finding something to destroy that was Eggman's or his cronies, he tried to resurrect his warrior soul in the process. But he failed when he was shot down by Eggman's new flying bots. They were faster and more aggressive than the old hoverbots that he and others had tangled with during the reign of the first Robotnick. And being on a bad anger trip didn't help neither. He was only able to down one when two others closed in on him from behind. Punching some nice big, plasma holes in his tail section, the control cables were neatly severed from his stick, and all he could do was bail out and watch his plane smolder to the ground.

He tried to glide back to the ground, but his severed lock that he lost some months back, hindered his abilities that made him careen across the ground and into a nicely positioned tree. With three busted ribs, he found himself brushing up on his escape and evasion techniques on the fly as he fought to stay low and await for one of the other Freelanders to come and rescue him. To his displeasure, it was Lopper. For five days on horseback, they made their way from the Mobian Jungle to Mathias's house for Aleutian to, yet again, get patched up. Every step that Lopper's Appallation horse made, Aleutian felt it through his three broken ribs. Every lesson and displeasure that Lopper made clear to Aleutian, it only made him furious at himself.

When he arrived home after several weeks of healing, he wrote it all in his journal. And thus, he fell even further into his depression. Somehow, Lopper and one of his other squadron mates brought his plane back home and dropped the thing in his basement instead of the Major General's place. Every time he looked at the charred, twisted ruins of his plane, which he knew Locke was probably wondering about, he put the chore of restoring the gulled mono-winged plane back to its former glorious blue-self again aside in his depression. Aleutian had the mental capacity and what other abilities he had left, mostly strength and his vision to see through things, to do the job. But he mourned constantly which took up most of his days.

And then one day, his buddy Supermarine, a brown hedgehog with a middle-class English accent, came calling at his door, minus his clipped wing fighter. He was sent to fetch Aleutian and take him out for a night on the town in Station Square. It was the first time the scarred echidna had shown his face in public, but he felt happy that he did with most of his squadron mates around. He didn't talk much or interact, though. He just sat back in a corner with them as he sipped his strong tea, being overshadowed by his black coat and his fedora. It all seemed go well until a few of his friends asked a young female lynx to go over and hopefully cheer him up with some small talk and a beautiful figure to look over. It was a bad move on their part. Aleutian only took one look at her and told her to get lost with venom in his voice. With that, he walked out of the club and into the wet and crooked streets of Station Square that Chaos had torn up only a few weeks prior. He never knew of the fight that Sonic and his brother went through to defeat that ungodly creature. He instead only contemplated more about himself than the current war.

Since that time, there went a standing rule between Aleutian and his friends; if they ventured to Station Square to hopefully make Aleutian feel better, the echidna couldn't wear his black garb, instead, only his aviator jacket and a shirt if he wanted, which he did. And in turn, they wouldn't ask a girl to go hang out with him. Aleutian would sit with them and listen to their stories of their families and past misadventures, but never of the current war. It wasn't that Aleutian said anything about it, but they all knew to shy away from the subject all together. They could see the shame on his face for not stopping this new Robotnick. Eggman as they called him.

And with that shame, his commitment to his brother and his kind vanished. When Emi-La died in his arms, his light for that drive died along with her. When he found himself at the mercy of some Swat Bots that ended up slashing at his birthmark, his shame was exchanged with the scar on his chest. With the following news of kingdoms, zones, and cities being taken control by Eggman, Aleutian felt guilty in not using his deadly skill on both flesh and machine alike, to stop the spread of tyranny.

When all self-honor seemed lost, his had attitude changed one night. Finding himself in front of his friends at the small club they frequented, he noticed that one was missing...and for the death of him, he couldn't remember who.

"Hart was killed three days ago, Aleutian," coldly explained Supermarine, breaking the unwritten rule. "He and his family were slaughtered in the middle of the night, thanks to Eggman's bloody machines."

Hearing the obituary of the racoons and his family's death sent a whimper back up from Aleutian's heart to his mind. It was his warrior soul that cried out this time, proclaiming that it had had enough of being imprisoned by Aleutian's depression.

Sometime after that, the echidna found himself seeking out an old contact that he and Emi-La had frequented in the past. Known only as Control to a very special few, she made Aleutian and Emi-La call her Mum. She was an old black panther and she liked having the two love birds working for her. Reason: they never did it for money, nor did they drop down to the level of a spy. What she had asked them to do, if they took the request, was either to do hits on certain individuals, or to rescue other Mobians from the promises of slavery. Control did have other people to do the jobs, but they were very few and far between. She could actually count the numbers on her hands and still have digits left over to add. Upon hearing who Aleutian was, she made doubly sure that she didn't give them intel' that would send the two on dark and cruel operations that they were at free-will to do or not to do. She also valued Aleutian's blood-right as Emi-La did.

And like his friends after Emi-La's death, Mum asked the same question as they all did when he came to her: "Have you gone home yet, Aleutian?" She'd asked that with a stern voice when Aleutian walked in the door to her secret sanctuary in Casino Night City the second time. Aleutian was taken aback by the statement, but he knew that she heard practically everything, like Haven did. And like his father, she withheld information, probably even more so than Locke. The reason, for which Aleutian and Emi-La totally saw the logic behind, was not to comprise other spies or operators that fought against the fat-man. The game they all played was dangerous, and to make it less dangerous if at all possible was to keep as much people from knowing about the others.

Her eyes were keen as well, living up to her Mobian ancestry of being a cat. She could see Aleutian was definitely not himself. Of course she knew that when he came to her the very first time when his scars were still fresh, looking for the whereabouts of three Overlanders and one Mobian. She never gave that information up, even if she did have it. But two years later when he came back to her again, only asking for work and not even caring about what it was, that was when she asked him the question about home. He only shook his angered face as an answer, mostly at himself for not keeping a certain promise.

"What's happened to you, Operator?" she scorned at him after his gesture. He just stood rigid in front of her desk, saying nothing.

Seeing this, along with the darkness that enveloped Aleutian with his clothes and emotions, she sat down with him and gave him a name to hopefully get him going again...Shadow the Hedgehog. Little was known about him, save that he was working for Eggman in rounding up information as well as pulling strings and money for the fat-man's operations. And in the Panther's eyes, that was all that mattered for the hedgehog to be a target.

"Kill him if you have too, but sending him to Knothole is your primary objective. Let that St. John have a chat with him," she instructed. "But for now, lets get your field craft back up to speed. Shall we?"

For four hours and with no breaks, Control filled Aleutian in on who were the players and who had come to their side after the first war, asking the echidna in-between breaks of information if he was sure that he wanted to cross over to the level of spy. Every hard nod confirmed her disappointment. She refreshed him with the workings of the Mobian underworld; who was working for who, and where they went for contacts and drops. It all soon became clear to Aleutian as it had before, the circle revolved around Eggman. Then came the good-guys, only naming off names and what species they were to Aleutian for references. Getting burned in the current state of things around Mobius was almost instant death. Somewhere along the line, Rogue came into the picture briefly, but Aleutian had a sharp mind for remembering things. Unfortunately for him, that also included his past.

Then Mum laid out the route that Aleutian needed to take to get to Shadow. The start point for him began with a shrewd and violent rabbit named Downtown Ebony Hare. But getting to him as a contact was going to be more than slight of hand. Practically overnight, Aleutian had to learn the spy-craft; knowing how and where to do dead drops, arranging secret meetings, and most importantly, how not to get burned by either the bad guys or the good guys.

He worked the drops like a pro; placing magnetic holders under hologram phone booths or park benches so either Ebony or Blackjack could pick them up. This was done after Mum had secretively gave Aleutian's name to Ebony as a new possible hit-man, of which he was in much need for. After the forth drop, Ebony wanted to make physical contact with him, asking Aleutian in a note from one of the drops to meet him in his office in the slums of Station Square.

And from there, Aleutian's life took a turn for the better...but he still didn't feel that way.

His Mom's lesson always echoed in his mind._"Our decisions is what effects our destiny, Aleutian."_

He plucked the last piece of grass that made a one inch section of ground bare. He stared at it as he whispered to himself as to what he was going to do next in his life. He knew what his father wanted him to do; regain his lost power that he once had before. He used it to help fight off the hoards of bots in a desperate fight that he neither won or lost. But his abilities that came to him almost out of the blue didn't save his Emee. Instead he used it to kill in a fit of rage. And after that day, he lost them, except for his sight to see through walls. That gift was in him since he was five.

His ability had saved many Mobians in rooms that mere sight alone couldn't have gotten past the constructed walls. Before he and Emi-La would make entry into a room, he would feel the walls and tell her what he saw. From there, all else went like a perfectly tuned machine. First came the entry, then loud commands to drop weapons. If that tactic failed to gain control of the situation, which in most cases it did, the shooting and beat down would commence. The end result of it all; live hostages that would go home safe, if they still had a home left, and more intelligents that went to Mum to decipher.

Operators, Mum had called the two, and it was the reason why they could call her Mum. As Control had said to them over a fine meal, "You two are like my children. I ask of you to go out in harms way, and I pray that if you do accept, that you two would come back with success and in one piece. If you of you shall die, I believe in the bottom of my heart that I will mourn your loss till the day I die." And she kept true to her feelings when Emi-La was robbed of her life.

"_It's all in the past now,"_ Aleutian whispered to himself. _"Now we have a choice to make; to go with your father and do what he asks of you, and see if he has the strength to help you from yourself...or runaway from them...like you did before."_

He grimaces at the thought again. He had been running away all this time in no particular direction, and it showed. He looked exhausted, felt it. The fight he instigated for no Mobianly reason than just to beat his anger out on someone, had showed how weak he was. And defeat was the end result. He took it as a lesson, but he didn't understand what the lesson was.

Aleutian felt footsteps through the ground coming towards him. He looked behind him to see a familiar white and tan skinned bat coming up beside him.

"You okay, hunk?" Rogue asked as she stood over him.

"Sore," he replied with a flat voice.

Rogue smiled for an instant before she stated that would be obvious to some, but not to Aleutian. "You don't go picking fights with him unless you are absolutely certain you can win. So how does it feel to battle someone almost like you?"

"What do you mean?" he asked her with a puzzled look that ended up tracing her impressive figure.

"Well, he's kinda moody and dark like you, Aleutian. But he is that way cause he didn't know who he was until a couple of weeks ago."

"You mean he found himself?" Aleutian asked with a hint of surprise.

Rogue placed her finger over her lips as she organized her words. "More like he found out who he is. You are you 'cause you keep wanting to runaway from yourself. Like I said back on the boat, you need to stop beating yourself up, hunk."

Aleutian nodded at her as he turned his weary mind back to the ground.

"Watch yourself around Station Square and a few other places," he blurted out to her after a moments thought. "There are people who would like to get their hands on you. I don't know who, but it was the way that Ebony gave me your information that said other people higher up on the food chain want you _bad_."

Rogue nodded and smiled as she leaned over to Aleutian. She spoke in his ear in a taunting whisper, "If it means anything... I wish you well." And with that he kissed him on the cheek before she turned and walked away.

Aleutian blushed as he felt a cold shiver trace down all over his body. He almost balled over from it. The way she said it to him; the whisper, the kiss, it sent him back over seven years ago when Emi-La said something to him that gave him the same feeling...

"_I feel safe with you."_

* * *

"What's he thinking about, dad?" asked Knuckles, watching Rogue kiss Aleutian on the cheek. He gave out a hint of a smile when his brother look to her with a bewildered face as she gracefully walked away.

"He is wondering if he wants to go through with this."

"If he doesn't, he'll be abandoning me and _her_," said Knuckles with a slight cold voice.

"Emi-La?" asked Locke with a curious look.

Knuckles nodded. "From what Mathias said, she made him promise her that he would return home...to us." Knuckles sighed and paused for moment, holding back his emotions. "He has a whole world to lose father if he doesn't go."

"And friends," Locke added, seeing Knuckles almost roll up into tears over his brother.

"I can't help but wonder what all he has done, father."

Locke stamped at the question with his foot that seemed to help organize his thoughts. "I wonder the same, Knuckles. I intend to find out the truth for you, and I will tell it once I hear it. That is unless he does first. I have this feeling he may open up more to you than me."

"Why?"

Locke shook his head at himself, "His bitterness doesn't lie with you."

Knuckles rolled his head over to his father upon seeing Sally, Elias, and Sonic approaching them. "Do come back with _my__brother_, dad...the real him."

"I will," Locke breathed out, "I will for the both of us."

"Okay, here ya' go," announced Sonic as he gave Locke a spare green pack along with Aleutian's. He had specially filled it with M.R.E.'s that he knew the two were going to need, plus other items that he knew Locke would enjoy.

"Can we have him back when you're done?" asked Elias, Sally nodding at the question as well.

"We'll see what happens first. I need one of them back on the Island to help fight," replied Locke.

"Please, Locke. I can really use him for what he knows," begged Elias.

"Like I said, We'll see what happens."

Locke bid his farewell, and with Archimedes on his shoulder and Knuckles by his side, they strolled the short void to Aleutian, who was still sitting in the middle of the field.

"It's time son. We must be on our way," proclaimed Locke in a soft, sincere voice.

Aleutian lumbered to his feet as his soreness echoed throughout his body. Knuckles walked up to him and handed him his backpack and said, "You'll be back?"

Aleutian took his tan colored pack and slung it over both of his shoulders. "I plan too," he said with a solemn but confident look.

Knuckles embraced his brother one last time as Locke went over and stood beside Aleutian. "I hope it isn't too painful for you. I can tell you've seen enough."

"I can go this last round, Knuckles" said Aleutian, his voice soft. "Thanks for looking after me, though."

Knuckles felt his eyes start to drown with his tears, "Someone has too."

Locke looked over at Archy and nodded at him, _"You know where we are going?"_ he asked through telepathy.

"_I do. Are you sure you want to do this to him? It could have adverse effects."_

Locke looked at both of his sons who were bidding their final farewells with each other. _"I'm sure."_

"It's time," he reaffirmed.

Locke placed his left hand over Aleutian's shoulder and brought him back from Knuckles who just watched with tears in his eye. From all that he knew of his brother and all that the two of them had been through the past week and a half, he was glad that this was what Aleutian was willing to do. Knuckles wanted nothing more than to see his brother come back to his family...his real family.

He watched his brother give him a confident nod and smile as the three disappeared with Archimedes' purple smoke. When it cleared, they were all gone.

"You okay Knux?" asked Sonic as the trio walked up beside him when Knuckles' family had gone. "Man, this isn't you."

"Yea," replied Knuckles, his voice flexing with his sadness and tears, "just sometimes you need to be reminded of what makes us who we are."

* * *

The next updates won't be for a awhile, but I can tell you that Snively will finally make is apperence, and he has an idea that will prove that he is more than a lackey to Eggman. Need to edit and still write the rest of this one out still. It's becoming a juggling act in a truck with no shocks. Thanks for reading and please review.

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	6. Snively's People

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Greetings and welcome to the latest up. It's been a while since I've done an update on this project, but been busy putting the next chapters together. So expect more to follow.

This is possibly the shortest chapter of the book so far; could be for the rest of the arc. The title is again taken from a John LeCarre' book called "Smiley's People." Another great spy novel for those who don't mind falling asleep in their cherrios. But nevertheless, this chapter is not like that. Here is where the plot really begins. Aside from Aleutian finding himself, I wanted to add something more into this book without putting him as the total main character. This chapter also puts me in a unique postion to grab the origianl character arc to have a name stay in this. Course I view my first book to really balance the playing field out in that respect.

So...the disclamer: I own nothing of the Sega characters and the comics and respect the aurthor's rights who do. In which, I stand to recieve no profit from this excep for experiences.

Have to acknowledge Zycho32 for his clean up of the first paragragh. He's an awsome writer and I urge other readers to check out his story "Starting Points." He put me in my place and where I want to go.

And now...I bring you Snively...the real bad guy in this.

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**Snively's People**

by: Mauser

* * *

He wasn't happy nor was he troubled. Lost in his thoughts, he pondered the three screens in front of him, showering his long nose and bald balloon shaped head with ambient lights of blue, white, and green. He studied a diagram on one, fidgeting in his leather chair as he took note of an old bot design and compared it to the newer version on the next screen to the left. Unknowingly, he flinched his face into a crooked half grin that quickly vanished when a harsh female scream shot through the speakers. He snapped his eyes over to the third screen in time to see an Eggbot throw an orange-red furred female fox across the ground. Her cloths ripped to rags, partially exposing parts of her anatomy that at any other time would arose a male mobian.

In a way, he felt indifferent of what his uncle was doing at times. And then there were times like this, the actions that the bots were ordered to do sent shivers down his spine. He watched closely as five other mobians were tossed beside her, fear on their faces along with despair. Afterwards came the order for them to stand on their feet, noting that they did with much hesitation. Snivley knew what was coming. He hadn't seen what had happened previously when he switched to this particular prison camp that made up several more others that were spread around Mobius. But the look on the fox showed what had transpired before. Behind them, a long pit that with a sunflower feel beyond that. In front of them, two Eggbots: one which was hovering overhead, its round bulk frame with wings that stuck out to the sides, armed with a forward mounted auto-blaster that was trained on the line of prisoners. With a beep from the silver Eggbot on the ground, the hovering bot tore loose with its plasma cannon with precision accuracy, lacing the bodies of the Mobians with hot orange plasma bolts. Snively's gaze never left the girl; her fur was burned at the chest when a lone bolt found its mark amongst her comrades.

To Snively's joy, she didn't scream.

When he lost visual of her as she and the rest fell into the pit behind them like collapsing buildings, their now lifeless bodies lying on top of the others from before, he glanced back at the other two screens. _"So this is the new and improved Com-Bots,"_ he announced to himself with envious eyes. _"But what's missing to make them go operational?"_ He found the answer when he scrolled down through the technicals. _"Cloaking devices not installed: insufficient biological components?"_

Snively leaned further back in his chair, clasping his hands over his bald head, saved for a few strands of hair. _"So that's why he was furious about losing that cargo-ship,"_ Snively painfully concluded. He wasn't beaten for the revelation that Eggman found out just after the sinking of his Dreadbot and the Plunger -which Snively was very happy to finally see gone- but his uncle did yell at him for not telling him about it. Snively never dreamed that the phantom boat would have made a comeback. Especially after what he and the first Robotnick did over two years to make sure that it would never sail again; instead, just rust away. _"But hired help isn't as good as either a bot or yourself"_

However, besides scraping the Dreadbot from further construction and use, Eggman wanted to do the same with the new Com-Bots since he didn't have a certain component at his disposal. Snively thought otherwise.

After looking through the charts, diagrams, and inventory lists, he found that the facility they were housed and built in had punched out several of the new machines. As far as Snively was concerned, retooling and starting production on a new series of bots that wouldn't have the same potential was out of the question. He remembered all too well how the first Com-Bots almost won against Sonic and the rest of his Freedom Fighters...well, almost.

"_But these have more potential,"_ Snivley smiled inwards. _"Biometric__muscles, quieter hydraulic servos; these bots could do amazing things in silence. _

_But you can't utilize a five-foot-five piece of machinery without someone noticing."_

Snuffing at the air from his own comment, Snively went back to the screen where another group of Mobians were about to meet their harsh fate. He pivoted the camera around to gaze at the onlookers behind a heavily wired fence, seeing their faces painted with horror as they watched their friends about to be sent to the afterlife.

Snively pressed a button beside his keyboard and spoke through a small microphone that hovered above his mouth from the armrest of the chair:

"This is what happens if you don't work," he said with his nasal monotone voice, "This is what happens if you resist us. If you want freedom, then do as you _are_ told. Or your freedom will be achieved in the afterlife."

He watched with a wide smirk on his face as the forced onlookers talked amongst themselves, no doubt telling each other to do as they're told from now on and not to start another uprising. Once more, he traced the fence line with his camera, seeing some of the prisoners cowering behind others as the last five mobians were cut down in rapid succession.

But then he stopped, centering his camera and his gaze onto what he couldn't believe. At the drop of a hat, a plan was conceived from what he his wide eyes projected to his deviant brain.

"_Well-well-well. What do we have here?"_

* * *

"Be strong, Kripta!"

"I can't take it anymore, Christian," she replied with a hard shiver in her voice induced by a crippling fear.

He looked down at her, gazing past her horn and green skin to her purple eyes. "But if we do as they say, we can get through this."

"Do you honestly believe that," the Chameleon almost shrilled as she looked up at her brown echidna husband. He held her in his arms as she was overcome by what they had witnessed which had sent her to her knees.

"No," he replied with a weary and cautious look as he glanced around him, nodding at a male leopard just off to his left, "not a bit. But, we need to keep them thinking that way. So we must remain strong."

Kripta nodded her head and mustered all the strength that she had left and rose up from the hard clay ground. What she had for pants when they first arrived at the camp were little more than a black pair of shorts; ragged, ripped, and dotted with holes as was her grey shirt. What was left of Christian's grey Echidna Security Team's uniform was almost in the same fashion.

"If we stay here, we're gonna draw attention to ourselves," came a quiet, but stern voice from behind Christian.

The brown echidna looked behind him and nodded in agreement to the blue Chameleon. "Your brother is right, Kripta. We need to move away from the fence," he said, affirming his brother-in-law's request to his sobbing wife.

Before they turned away from the fence, Anzio coldly noted that the bots weren't going to cover the bodies, but instead, to leave them to rot and smell in the hot sun that would hammer more of the message into the skulls of the rest of the living. He knew the two foxes that tried to instigate an uprise against their captors. They were former Freedom Fighters, taken prisoner when Robotnick Mark II went back on his word to Sonic and reconquered most of Mobius. They still held to their duties even in the camp, finding ways to escape or to attempt an uprising at the very least. What was needed was help. That they tried by forming a force to do the job. The plan would've succeeded if it hadn't been for the Eggbots shattering most of the camp's fighting spirt that was drained, along with their strength, in the endless flat fields of the Mobian Plains. With the mid-summer sun becoming more of an enemy than the bots, most of the forced laborers succumbed to the losing battle on both ends of the insufferable spectrum. With total exhaustion becoming the top predator over the machines, the foxes tried to launch their revolt with what energy and strength they had left to achieve freedom. In the end, it wasn't enough. For their failure, they were executed in front of the whole camp. But Eggman never saw their deaths as the end all solution. As a result, ten others were picked at random and subsequently slaughtered in front of trembling eyes –just to send a message.

"Will we ever see Angle Island again?" Kripta asked her husband as they struggled between two long huts.

"I don't know."

* * *

Snively hammered away at his keyboard, typing up an order as quickly as he could before he lost sight of the three. He switched to another camera as they rounded one of the twelve rectangular prisoner huts that were huddled together in rows, and looked about as ragged as the people they housed. Before he sent the message out, he reached deep into his hard-drive for a hidden program that he had constructed long before Eggman came calling to bring tyranny to the planet. He knew Sonic had cracked the encryption that Eggman was using –it became well defined after the little incident with theDreadbot and the rusted old submarine. But yet, Eggman still didn't believe him when Snivel suggested the notion to him, brushing off the warranted observation by saying something to the tune that Sonic and his fur-balled crowd didn't possess the mental capacity to crack the codes.

After he sequenced his new program into his message, he sent it across the bandwidths of two satellites. He pulled his hands together at the finger tips as he smiled intently, waiting for his orders to be executed by the Eggbots.

* * *

When they passed through the second row of , they noticed other mobians scattering away from them. Anzio soon realized why. A cold sinking feeling came over him faster than that of what his ears could make out; the low humming noise of a hovering Eggbot was much like a rhythmic drumbeat to the gallows. He didn't need to glance up, he knew its weapon was trained on them just like it had been once before on his brethren that now lay dead in a mass grave.

"Halt!" shouted a different bot to their right, standing with its large broad sword pointed at them. Soon, three more showed up and encircle the trio.

"We are doing as you asked," Christian pleaded with the mindless droids, saved by their A.I. that only seemed to care about not making their master irritable.

"The Chameleons come with us," ordered the bot from overhead, its voice box chattering in a commanding voice.

Kripta held Christian's left arm ever tighter. "What do you want with us?" she cried out.

"Not for you to know!" spat out the same bot.

As the four bots began to close their distance, Anzio triggered the cells in his skin on instinct rather than training. He vanished in a mere few seconds as he blended into the scenery.

"Switch to heartbeat mode and find him..."

Before the lead bot in front of them could get his order fully across to the rest, he witnessed his arm being twisted and torn off. With the heavy blade that was still attached to its arm, the Eggbot watched as it was rammed through its metal hulk as if the Goddess was smiting him with its own weapon. After Anzio took the sword out from the jolting bot, he turned quickly around to go for a second bot when his body erupted in enormous pain. Christian flinched in terror as the hovering Eggbot switched its laser to stun and gave the invisible chamaeleon an excruciating jolt from it.

Anzio dropped to the ground, slowly reappearing to the others, unconscious.

"Anzy!" Kripta screamed out with what little energy she had left. She tried to bolt forward from Christian's arms, but he held her back, cuddling her face over his chest. They watched as two other bots went over and picked his body off the ground, dragging him away by the arms as if he were some prize to the machines.

Then Christian's heart seem to freeze when he felt a sharp blade come across his neck.

"Release the Chamaeleon, now!" came the computer generated voice.

Christian held Kripta tightly in his arms, using his love as his defiance against the bots.

"We said release the chamaeleon!" With a hard tug, one of the Eggbots pulled Kripta out of Chritian's arms as the bot with the sword at his neck pulled him away in the opposite direction. Kripta tried to hold on, but her fingernails sunk deep into her beloved husband's brown furred skin and trenching three lines from the center of his forearm to his wrist. But he didn't care. He tried to pull away from the Eggbot, but his strength came up short from the amount that he needed to succeed. The bot then dug the point of his blade deeper into Christian's dread lock covered neck and the echidna stopped his resistance at that painful instant.

He wanted to bolt; the thought beckoned him to do so, but the blade killed that idea in its infancy. In its stead, Christian weepingly watched as the bot carried Kripta under its arms. She was crying out his name as she held her arms out, her hands looking as if she was trying to grasp him as the bot widened the void between them. He said nothing as he watched her vanish behind a hut and away from his life.

* * *

Snivley had already turned the viewer off when the Eggbots had separated the two lovers. He shunned away his pity by concentrating more on his "new" project. Still being his Uncle's lackey wasn't sitting with him...but at least he wasn't getting hit anymore.

"_I'll show him what I am capable of, and when I succeed, he'll be my lackey instead. _

_But if he doesn't..."_

Snively smiled widely as he drew his plan from his cruel skull, musing intently over the sweet outcome that he hoped would follow.

* * *

Hoped you enjoyed this chapter. Please review my progress and where I should improve.

Next chapter will be of Aleutian. I'll be bringing out shades of a love story I hope to create out of all this.


	7. Swimming Lessons

* * *

Greetings and welcome. While I was doing the last of the editing with this chapter, I made the descions to relax some restrictions of content and the chapter that follows from this will show more of that than here. This will possibly be the last time I dwell on Knuckle's history so I can mold Aleutian's history in with it. For me it works perfectly with the emotions that I strive to build on with this story. I can't help afterwards but step back and image what Locke is thinking about his son: seeing the scars, observing his training being somewhat put through the paces, and the emotional burden that is clearly on his face and body. I'll be bring more of those thoughts out in the oncoming chapters to follow. So sit tight and bare with some of the dry stuff.

Please review...so far this is becoming upsetting that no one has taken a the time out just to FLAME me for something. Well, observations of what I need to do to improve this is much appricated over the later.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic and this friends and enemies. Other characters that are not in the arcs are of my own.

Enjoy..."And don't forget to bring a towel."

* * *

**Swimming Lessons**

By: Mauser

"_Just a little more!"_

Aleutian pushed himself further in his head to keep pace over his heavy feet. He was surprised he could even think at all between his sore muscles, his hard breathing, and now his weakened, burning legs. _"Find way to start bonding, Dad. Next time, I'll take you on a cruise instead of my brother..."_ He scolded himself from his selfish comment at that instant, making him come to a dead, hard breathing stop.

Hunching over his knees, he took a long look at the ground as his lungs sucked in the warm air. _"There isn't going to be a next time...remember?"_

Locke had sent him running as soon as they had teleported to the foothills of somewhere he wasn't sure of yet. The rocky rolling hills made it very difficult for Aleutian to keep pace with himself, and the pack on his back didn't make it any easier. He swore with every tenth mile he put under his legs, his pack grew that much in weight. But as least Locke made him take his jacket off, and he was glad he did. His silk fur was wet with sweat from the blistering sun.

Aleutian looked up from his knees and took in his surroundings. Before him, a line of large trees that were scattered enough to form multiple paths into the forest. Breathing in one last gasp of easy air before he drove on, he honestly wondered if he was going to survive this next hurdle in his young life. With a painful step that made Aleutian realize that he stood still for too long, he trotted at first before resuming his pace into a moderate jog.

He didn't get far when his side began to cramp. Steadying his shaky hands on the bark passing trees as he walked around them, he tried to catch his breath over the pain from the stitch in his side. His breaths soon became grunts as he moved further into the forest, seemingly driving the pain further into his side. Aleutian was felling he was being punished for not keeping up with his physical training, or even his operative training at the very least. Every aching step he took impounded that realization across his body.

He passed a tree and was completely startled by his father's voice from up high. "If you think about something else, your pain will go away and your trek becomes easier."

Aleutian looked up at the tree and saw his father sitting cross legged comfortably on a large branch. Aleutian braced himself with his hands against the tree and tried to catch his breath once more before he spoke:

"And replace it with what...more pain?" he panted out.

"What about the future? Have you thought about that instead of the past?"

Aleutian looked back up to his father, his scarred face painted with worry and sweat. "I'm afraid of it at this point...especially after today."

Locke jumped out of the tree and glided down with the wind in his dreads, doing a circle in the air that traced the ground around Aleutian. When he landed on the soft ground, he opened his son's jacket up and looked at the back, studying the painted picture.

"What _are_ you afraid of?" he asked as he looked over the Griffin on Aleutian's jacket once more. He then held it out to his son.

"I don't know!" Aleutian seethed as he snatched his jacket from his father's grasp, wrapping it between him and his pack.

"I think you do, Aleutian. You're just afraid of telling either me or your brother about your past. That _is_ what the future holds for you. Why don't you tell us, son?"

Aleutian walked past his father. "I don't think you'd understand," he said as he hung his head slightly low that mimicked his voice. Shaking his stare loose from the ground, he slowly trudged away as his tail seemed to slump further across the leafy ground.

Locke watched his son disappear further into the woods, vanishing behind a few trees as he made his way east. _"Try me, my young Guardian."_

With a whiff of smoke, Archy appeared on his right shoulder.

"There you are. I was wondering where you went to?" Locke asked in a soft, swift voice.

"Retracing some of my footsteps around here," replied the deep red Fire Ant. "It's been awhile since I ventured this far."

"Where are we, anyways?"

"We're on the southeast edge of the Badlands."

"Why here of all places?" Locke asked with a flat voice.

"I think this is where Aleutian found Emi-La, Locke. He spent several weeks out here with her to help her get back to the Lost Tribe."

Locke looked over at his long friend and mentor: "Was she lost or something?"

Archimedes looked around at the wooded surroundings and frowned. "I don't know? All I remember of her was that she was an orphan, and that she loved your son with every ounce of her strength that she had. She was one of the main reasons why he didn't come home the first time when you summoned him."

"How so?"

"He wasn't going to leave her. Something about her being through too much and a promise. But she almost made him come back on his own."

Locke started walking, crossing his arms as he made his way forward where his son had ventured off. "I still remember what Aleutian told you to tell me: 'If I wanted him...'"

"'...The you can come get him yourself,'" Archy finished. "She made him promise her that he would go back years after that, Locke," he added. "It was her dying wish."

* * *

Aleutian found his way through the forest, traversing through the gaps of trees and brushes as he lumbered his way eastward. When he traveled about half a mile from where he left his father to himself, Aleutian found a fallen tree that had rotted away from the rain, sun, and termites over the years. Black had replaced the grey bark and brown wood. Its topside was naturally carved out from the surrounding wildlife and elements, and patches of green moss had grown underneath it. But even as it was, somehow, the fallen decayed tree looked frightening and emotionally familiar. The outlying golden, brown leaves added to his memories.

Pushing his thoughts aside, he pressed on, trekking forward as he took in the late-afternoon day with all of his senses. When he approached two hills that cut a twenty foot wide valley between them, Aleutian stopped completely.

"_No...we're not here...are we?"_ he gasped at himself.

He snapped his head back behind him for a moment, seeing his father and Archy closing in on him as they made their way through the woods. With a hard determined look, Aleutian powered up the ridge of the hill that rose up about thirty feet in elevation, dodging rocks and boulders that littered the hill side. When he reached the top, he started noticing familiar trees again, along with more boulders.

It hit him like a freight train.

"_We are here."_

He stepped past trees and rocks that seven years ago he used as cover against some very unfriendly Mobian dogs. The smell of ozone, scorched timber and fur, along with the sounds of screaming voices that went silent because of him, came back to Aleutian's senses. It was here that his innocence was truly purged from his existence. It was her that he first killed.

Knowing what probably laid ahead of him, he took off running. Every hard step shot discomfort from his sore muscles to his nervous system; but he pushed it all further back into his mind. After twenty paces he heard it. At first it sounded like the trees were waving in the wind, but their was no wind to speak of in the mid-summer's heat. Several more paces later, the rushing sound became more pronounced. He scrabbled down the hill and into the valley, swinging around a few trees and jumping over a large boulder that lay in his way. As he ran faster over the fallen leaves, the rushing sound became clearer...it was falling water.

The valley vanished into obscurity as the two hills flattened out into a beach that made up the shoreline of a river. It was fed by a hundred foot high water fall that marked the beginning of the Badlands to the west of it. The ground had turned from leaves, to green grass, to mud as Aleutian crept closer to the small pound that marked the second stage of the river's course. It spread about fifty yards across from where he was standing to the falls that dropped straight down. A lite mist floated on top of the crystal clear water, looking as if spirits were dancing on the surface.

When he stopped at the waters edge, he looked down at his reflection in the lapping water that played around his new shoes. What he saw was a far cry from over seven years ago.

His own voice was triggered by his reflection; _"It's okay...your safe now,"_ he remembered saying to Emi-La in a soothing, comforting voice.

"_What were they going to do to me," _she whimpered out as she sat in the water, leaning her head against Aleutian's chest as he caressed her shoulder.

"_I don't know," _he lied at the instant, _"But I didn't want us to find out."_

The gentle pattern of the lapping water was disturbed when a tear from Aleutian's scarred right eye fell to the water. He grimaced at himself as he shot his head back up and stared at the water fall.

Hearing the mud squishing under Locke's boots, Aleutian snapped his whole body around:

"Why did you bring me here!?" he demanded with an emotionally charged voice, his face asking the same question with his tears.

"For you..." Locke stated, but only to be cut off by his angered son:

"...For me...to what, give me the gift of pain!"

"No, lad!" barked Archimedes. "This is for you to remember the better days of your life. Do you really think your father wants to see you in more pain. This is for you Aleutian; for you to remember who you really are. Okay? You traveled for almost a month with a girl –who you never knew– to help her get back to her family. Why? Because that is the Guardian inside of you...the protector...the one who helps others in their time of dire need. "

"I killed out here, Archimedes!" Aleutian seethed out over his tears. "I killed live beings for the first time --right down in that valley!"

"And why, son?" asked Locke this time, his voice sincere amongst tension.

Aleutian took a long pause, seeing what the two were forcing upon him. He shunned away his feelings of hatred at himself for the brief moment of reflection and peered deep inside of his soul; and he saw:

"To save her from a pack of dogs who wanted to rape and murderer her!"

Locke nodded his head twice then said, "You're not the first Guardian who has killed, Aleutian. It is a last option with us, but we have had to use 'that' option before. It's nothing to be ashamed of...especially in this case." Skipping the history of Knuckles killing an Overlander named Hunter, Locke took a deep breath before he asked his next line of thoughts. "So, was this where you met your equal?"

Aleutian shifted his gaze back to the mud ridden ground. "No. I found her about a week prior to this."

An urge suddenly then came over him after a moment of silence, one that he hadn't felt in years. He took off his back pack and chucked it, along with his jacket, to his father. Locke caught them and placed them down to the ground. He watched his son slowly turn his back towards him and gently walk into the water, never caring about taking off his shoes.

He felt the jagged rocks under his feet through the soles, but they were the furthest thing from his mind as the cool water rinsed across his silk smooth fur. As he went deeper, immersing his thighs, he lowered himself further down in the water and turned over on his back, facing up at the cloudless blue sky. Of the trials he went through from the hot day, this was heaven for him. He floated for several minutes, letting the water soak through to his skin that slowly rinsed away the lingering diesel smell from his body. The thought of losing the sent made him want to cry at first. Besides the pictures that hung on his wall, the smell was all he had left to remember Mathias and the Plunger by.

The old Dingo's words floated back to him as he took in the azure sky and the weightlessness of his body:

"'_Let go, Aleutian!'"_

"But I can't, old man," he whispered to himself aloud as wakes from the falling water lapped around floating dread locks.

Aleutian looked back towards the bank and watched as his father made his way into the water as well. "Don't care if that robe of yours gets wet?" he asked as he floated with his arms out to his sides.

"It'll dry," Locke returned with a light smirk.

"Yea, but how long!?" Aleutian shouted out with almost a smile purging from his lips.

"Not long. Faster than you think."

"Okay...have fun with the head cold, then." Aleutian let his head float back on the water as he gazed at the sky again. Before long, he smiled and said; "Watch your next step, it's a nice..."

He shot his head up in time to see Locke get swallowed up by the large pond. He only went neck deep, but the picture of the whole act was worth it for Aleutian. He hadn't laughed that hard in over two years.

"Oh man, that was priceless!" he boasted with a hard laugh. "You've should've seen your face on that one."

Locke twitched his right eye as the initial shock of the cold water, that almost drove every ounce of air from his lungs, wore off. "You're going to pay for that, young Guardian," he told Aleutian over a deadpan face.

Aleutian's smile faded deliberately slow to seriousness. "I still owe for my debts," he retorted with a low gruff.

"Is that so?" spelled out Locke as he found it hard to tread water with his heavy boots. Pushing the annoyance aside, he flashed a grin and started swimming towards his son. "We'll see about that."

Aleutian smirked as Locke drew closer to him. "I'm the wrong pup to be messing with in the water."

"Is that so?" Locke smirked again, broadening his brows with the comment.

"Hope you can take a lesson better than I can," said Aleutian, and at the moment, he expelled a good portion of air out from his lungs and sank under the water without so much of a ripple.

Locke swam across the water and ducked down below the surface, spreading his arms out wide to hopefully grab his son; but he came up short. When he surfaced, he looked around him. The water was smooth, saved for the ripples from the waterfall. He looked right at first, but he saw nothing but the path of the river. Looking down at the somewhat clear water, he didn't see Aleutian there either. But when he looked left, he saw him. Aleutian reassembled Vector in a frightening way, his head halfway out of the water with his black nose on his broad snout breathing in the fresh air. With a wink from his scarred right eye, he expelled a little more air from his lungs as he slowly vanished back down. Locke noticed with surprise that Aleutian didn't make even a single ripple as he sank to the shallow depths.

Closing his eyes, Locke channeled his senses to the water around him. At first he was going to wait Aleutian out and possibly feel him come up close to dunk his head under. But after a moment, he didn't feel or sense anything. He quickly opened his eyes and rubbed the dripping water away from them and his nose. Glancing around, he didn't see his son's head at all. Pivoting himself from side to side for a brief moment, he still came up short with only the waterfall to entrance his sight and thoughts. He began to worry a few seconds later. Locke estimated that Aleutian had been down a whole minute by now and he didn't know if there were any dangerous creatures in this pound.

What he didn't realize was that Aleutian was eight inches behind him, slowly rising up without so much of a ripple from a pin drop of water. It was at the instant that Archimedes realized his worst fears at what he knew all along about Aleutian and what a certain lop eared rabbit did to him as the Fire Ant watched the whole act unfold from the banks:

"_That rabbit made him into a trained killer."_

He said nothing to Locke as Aleutian brought his chin up out of the water.

With a twisted smile and a hard thrust from both hands, Aleutian sank his father's head down into the water. When Locke popped back up and whipped the water from his face, he was met with a subtle laugh from behind him. He slowly paddled around to gaze upon his grinning son.

"Told y'ah I'm not nice in the water!" Aleutian gassed.

"Who taught you that?" Locke asked, almost shaking his head.

Aleutian's face went even. "Lopper. He taught me about half the stuff I know. Everything else either came from you or Mathias."

"Well that's nice to know that I still had a part in your upbringing," Locke nodded with a hint of smile. He stirred the water around him for a brief moment before a thought beckoned him. "You know your brother hates the water?"

Aleutian slowed his efforts to stay afloat as he looked up at his father with a now uneven face. "You think it has something to do with him and the bath from that night?"

"I'm pretty sure, Aleutian. Now, he does swim and he does tolerate it when he has too; but that doesn't mean he likes it." Locke perched lips and asked his next thought. "Do you still have your sight? After all, it did save your brother from drowning."

Aleutian remembered his vision well. He was scribing out his good-bye note to his parents and his brother when he heard a loud thump come from the bathroom that was a little ways down the hall from his room. He placed his hand on his desk and traced the floor with his gift of sight to the bathroom. What he saw made him bolt out of his chair in a heartbeat. When he got to the bathroom, he saw his mother on the tiled floor, knocked out cold after she'd slipped on one of Knuckles' toys and slammed her head against the wall. She had just placed Knuckles in the tub when it happened, and the commotion had startled him enough to make him slide under. Aleutian arrived just in time before Knuckles took in a fatal breath of water.

"_Oh no you don't, there's too much at stake with you," _he remembered saying as he dried off his crying brother, looking over to his mother at that same instant.

Three days later...Aleutian ran away. That life saving incident only saved him from leaving that night.

Then his memories flashed with the sight of his own stillborn child laying in the womb of Emi-La before her heart ceased to beat. She was five weeks pregnant and she never told him until it was too late. His chances of raising a family and his own Guardian were whisked away from him like a thief in the night. Locke saw his son's face turn to anguish as the thought of him saving his brother was replaced by something painful. But even though, Aleutian remembered his mother and the happier times that they all had together, even when he and his father didn't speak to each other hardly at all. And that thought triggered his next painful question:

"Why did you and mom divorce, Dad? It wasn't over me...was it?" he asked with a dreary look that beamed across the surface of the water.

Locke took in a deep breath and sighed. "No, it wasn't over you. It was about your brother, his duties, and me. Your mom didn't like the idea that I was going to take Knuckles and start his training when he was three. She had already lost you and she didn't want to loose your brother as well. She knew what was to become of either one of you, but..."

"...A mother is a mother," Aleutian softly added.

"Yes," Locke solemnly admitted. "Sometime later, we split and I took your brother to the Island where I started his training."

"And then you left him on his own when he was nine!?" Aleutian halfway seethed out.

"That's what happens in our bloodline. If you had stayed, son, you would have either gone through the same process or at least understood it. We leave for Haven so our sons can learn to fend for themselves on their own while we watch over the rest of the world."

Aleutian pushed his arms out to his sides and started swimming back to shore. "But you didn't find me for _how _long!?" he scoffed as he began to make his way back.

It wasn't until they stepped out from the water's edge when Locke gave his answer:

"We thought you had drowned, Aleutian. Me...the Brotherhood; we picked up the faint signal to my hand computer at the bottom of the ocean--"

"--You mean it worked!?" Aleutian blurted out, baffled to say the least.

"Yes and no. You didn't hit the distress beacon, but it turns on anyways once it gets dropped in water. We found didn't find any trace of you and we presumed that you were dead."

Aleutian looked past his father and out towards the setting sun that was somewhat blocked by the trees. "So what did you tell mom?"

"The truth."

"And how did she take it?" Aleutian asked over a guiltily frown.

"She didn't; _literally_. She held on for a long time that you were alive," Locke said evenly. "That is one thing that I still love about Lara; she has strength and courage. She never gave up on you. " Locke walked closer to his son and placed his hand across his shoulder. "She is the main reason why I am here with you now. She wants you back in her life Aleutian; but she wants the old Aleutian that was on that sub not too long ago, to be in her arms." He paused to let his words to sink for a moment. "It's why you have those shoes and those gloves. She believed in you when I didn't. And I'm sorry for that."

Aleutian gave an understanding nod and turned away. Locke watched as his son shook his dreads out and squeegeed most of the water from his fur. Seeing that his face was still long, he decided to give him some space for the rest of the evening.

Closing his eyes and clasping his hands together, Locke reached out across the sea and summoned the energy from the Master Emerald which began to warm his body up. Within a few seconds, steam bellowed from his fur and his tribal robe. Shortly after he began the cycle, he was dry.

"Dry, yet?" he asked his son who was putting on his jacket.

"Nope, how about you?"

"Never felt better."

"What!?" Aleutian shrilled as he did a double take at his father. "You can't be dry!" He then noticed the steam lifting off his father; including his grey, thin beard.

Locke saw the baffled look and smirked. "You sure you want give up your powers? You _are_ born with them after all."

Aleutian thought hard, and the harsh expression of it was painted on his face. "No. I don't deserve them."

"And who are you to judge?" came back Locke, his brows slanted.

Aleutian looked up and gave his father an everlasting look:

"My actions, father. They are the judge of me" And he said nothing afterwards.

* * *

Aleutian fell to sleep as quickly as the night spread her cloak across the Mobian landscape. Locke was very pleased at that. He wanted nothing more than to see his son's day come to better close than how it began. He was also grateful for what Sonic, Elias, and Tails' father had given them for rations and supplies: two sleeping bags that could be packed in the smallest of spaces in both their bags, enough food to last them for a week if they worked on it, and a fire starter kit that was now being put to good use; drying his boots and Aleutian's shoes. Granted that they could have had Archimedes use his breath of fire to make one, however, Locke wanted to use his survival skills to keep the fresh.

But what he was hoping to be quick lesson for his son became an astounding observation of what Aleutian possessed in knowledge. Locke was flat-out amazed to say the least at how quickly his son got the fire going with the tiniest amount of moss and two rocks. Locke asked him how long it took him to learn to get one going that fast and all Aleutian would reply was:

"If you live out here for a month, father, you learn quickly."

With that shrewd comment, Locke realized how much that month really met to Aleutian. He had gained a lover, became a survivalist, and found that he wasn't alone being a Guardian who abandoned his duties. He could only image Aleutian's face when he met Anthair for the first time. But then Locke scratched that idea; Aleutian had never really gone back on his duties. Instead, he took a more indirect approach that still helped his brother and his people.

However, Locke did know something else that Aleutian probably didn't. Knuckles has done more for the Island and the world than what Aleutian probably had. That was something that he was going to have to explain to him tomorrow.

But for that moment of peace and tranquility, there was something else that needed to be addressed while he watched his boy sleep. Locke knew that the answers were going to be hard to get out of him.

"What happened two years ago, Archy?" Locke asked with a low voice, being mindful of Aleutian's dreams, no matter how bad they could get.

"A nightmare, my old friend," Archy replied with a matter-of-fact voice.

"To whom...it certainly wasn't for the Kingdom of Acorn?"

"Aye, and they gave Knuckles their thanks for helping them free Knothole Village, and securing overall victory from Robotnick the first time." Archy then leaned over from his high place on a branch and looked down at his old pupil from many years ago. "But they really need to thank Aleutian for what _he_ did that helped to ensure that victory. The lad did what he sat out to do, Locke...he helped his brother out in more ways than one. In turn, he helped our allies as well when we didn't give them the time of day to fight."

"Then why does he hide it from everyone, Archimedes? That is something that I don't understand about him. If he helped, then why doesn't he honor his feats?"

Archy swallowed hard as he gathered his thoughts. "It's because of what he did afterwards, Locke. And it's the reason why he doesn't want his powers back. They're still there, mate, but he has them locked down and he plans to never open them back up."

"And the reason?" Locke asked with a gruff voice.

"It's what he did, and how I helped him do it."

"WHAT!?" Locke seethed but still keeping his voice disciplined.

Archy just shook his head for a moment and turned his attention to the sleeping boy.

"I asked Lopper about the traitors," stated Locke, hopefully changing the subject for a bit, "he said something about, 'dust in the wind.'"

Archy took in a heavy sigh. "There is more truth to that than you know, mate. I wish to this day that I had never witnessed of what he did."

Locke just stared at his old friend. He tried to solve the underlying message but the answer was too bizarre to fathom. So he totally changed the subject:

"So, where're we going tomorrow?"

"Someplace that could possibly really hurt him this time. I still think this is a bad idea."

"Not from the little of what I saw, Archy," Locke politely protested. "I saw shades of better memories coming back to him. We continue with this tomorrow. It's for the better for all of us."

Archimedes just nodded his head as he watched the black and yellow shadows of the fire dance over Aleutian's sleeping body.

* * *

"When are you all going to bed?" Sally asked promptly as she navigated around the Command Center.

"As soon as we can put a dent in this new code!" Uncle Chuck grumbled back, staring up at the large screen of Nicole. The new cipher that was sent over the airways was an impressive one, and it had him, Tails, Rotor, and Nicole working feverishly and tirelessly to crack it.

It was a cruel combination of trigonometry, statistics, and worse, a jumbled binary code that actually sported numbers other than ones and zeros. Just the sight of it would make the best mathematician want to commit suicide. But nevertheless, the four pressed on. Tails punching in the numbers, Nicole deciphering the binary code plus plugging the numbers in, Rotor tracing where the signal was sent to, and Uncle Chuck figuring out the harsh math out before he would slide the answers over to the orange twin tailed fox. But for four hours with hardly any breaks, the one word that they started out with kept changing with every solution.

"When was this sent?" asked Sally from behind them, her arms crossed as she watched Nicole compute the numbers over the message.

"Four and half hours ago, Princess," replied Rotor as he looked at a map on the screen beside him.

"And to _where_?"

Rotor rotated his swivel chair around and let Sally have a quick glance at the screen. "Someplace in the Mobian Plains," he replied as he pointed to the texture less map, save for colors and boundary lines. "It's a rough guess. We'll have a satellite overhead in the morning, and by then, we should be able to take snap shots and get a better look."

"Make it so," Sally affirmed as she noticed the area that Rotor had pointed to was pretty close to the Mobian desert. "Any other messages that we caught today?"

"That's the odd part, Your Highness!" flustered Uncle Chuck as he looked away from his work. "We intercepted several messages after this one, and all were using the old encryptions."

A raised brow. "That is odd...and scary! You think Eggman is revving up for another big attack?" Sally asked coldly.

Chuck just eerily nodded his head and went back to his work. "This has the tell-tale signs of it –unless he has figured out our secret. Who knows what Snively has told Robotnick about us since he defected back to him."

A curt nod. "Okay, we'll figure out something about this tomorrow," Sally tiredly said. She then walked over to Tails and leaned towards his pointed ear; "Don't stay up too late, Miles. We have a little quest for you tomorrow."

Tails just nodded while he kept his fixed attention on the screen in front of him. "I won't, Aunt Sally."

The stars twinkled in the black sky as Sally made her way back to Castle Acorn. Everyday seemed not to be without incident, especially since a certain echidna came to town. But even that thought made her sigh:

"_Hope he is doing better."_

Sonic watched Sally cross into the last line of huts, leaning beside another with his arms crossed. "Yo, Sal!" he called out to her. When she looked over at him, he dashed to her side.

"What do you want Sonic?" she asked, showing a hint of agitation in her voice.

Sonic threw his hands up in a plea. "I just wanna' talk, Sal! That's all."

"About what, Hedgehog?" she snuffed.

Sonic swallowed hard as he kept up with Sally's quickened pace; "Us, maybe."

His words grinded Sally to a dead halt. Her long auburn hair floated in the night breeze as she softened her gaze at Sonic's. He was being sincere for once.

"Being gone for a year in space put a cramp between us..."

"You can say that again, Sonic!"

Sonic stared deeper with his jaded eyes. "But things have changed, Sal. I mean...can we fix things, now!?" Sonic whole-heartily asked.

"I don't know...is Fiona totally out of the picture with you?" Sally snorted.

"See, things have changed!" the hedgehog pointed out with a crooked smile. "Scourge has her, and Scourge can keep her."

Sally suppressed her smile at the thought. She hated the green hedgehog as well as Sonic, and was exceptionally glad that Fiona left with him. Even Sally was beginning to hate the fox's full-body suit.

But then something else came up from Sally's heart:

"What's got you like this? You're never _this_ sentimental."

With a comforting but stern stare, Sonic took in a deep breath. "Aleutian."

"What!? You've got to be kidding me. How does _he_ make you think of us?"

"Cause he was in love just like the two of you were!" Sally floated her gaze around to Tails, hearing his childish voice that was built on frustration. He was on his way back to his hut to grab some shut-eye when he overheard some of the conversation. He missed his best friends being together and when he saw Sonic trying to mend things, he couldn't help himself but to give aid.

"Lil' bro, can you give us ah few shakes..."

Tails cut him off as he walked steadfast towards Sally. "Mathias told us how Aleutian was in love. We saw her picture..."

Sally instantly remembered what Archimedes had said to them back at the Command Center; that Aleutian's love for Emi-La was stronger than what Knuckles and Julie-Su shared. "Tell me more, Tails?" she calmly asked the sobbing fox.

Sonic quickly saw Tails emotions, somehow, get the better of him as he tried to muster his thoughts up. So, Sonic elaborated for him instead. "The Drake said something to the tune that they were betrayed and she died in his arms because of it."

"Okay, that's what Archimedes had said this morning," Sally bluntly added.

"But," Tails slowly began, "Emi-La made him promise to return home to help Knuckles. That was her last dying breath."

Sally shrugged her eyebrows with an ironic thought. "Looks liked we helped her in that respect."

"What do you mean _her_? What about him? We helped him honor that promise Sal...well, courtesy of Rad Red and all," Sonic shrugged.

"Sonic," Sally said in a soft, shrewd voice, "sometimes a promise needs to be helped along by the reciever. That's something you boys woudn't understand."

* * *

The floor was cold, and so was the borderline rotten food that she didn't touch. Even with the light that came through the half inch crack from the door, she could see the flies buzzing around the wilted grapes and dried bananas. The bots had tossed the plate in as if they were kings giving their peasants what was left of their half-eaten meal. And that was how Kripta felt. She wanted to vanish from all sight of the dark room, but she kept hearing the high pitched groans of a servo above her horned head. It must have been a camera, and she knew it was probably capable of infrared.

Then another groan came from behind her. It was her brother, Anzio, finally coming around from the hard stun that he received back at the work camp, which all seemed a blur now. She remembered her husband holding onto her before they were pulled apart by the emotionless robots that Eggman had for an army. Then she remembered them being hustled into an old hoverbot before they were whisked away to where, she didn't know. Before they landed, two of the bots that accompanied them as their captors, shackled their hands and blindfolded them. All she could sense was the cold building that echoed the moans and groans of heavy machinery, slaving over components of some kind as the bots escorted her and carried Anzio to their new nightmare.

Shaking his arm Kripta, tried to jostle her brother awake. "Anzio...are you okay." All she got was another groan as she traced the dark figure of her brother rolling over onto his back. "Anzio..." she whispered again with a shrill, tears raining down her face.

"Where–where are we, Kripta?" he moaned out over his aching head. "It's dark in here."

She hunched closer to him on her knees, clutching his hand with hers as if she could find sanctuary with it. "I don't know Anzy...I'm scarred, Anzy!"

"Keep quiet little sister," Anzio droned through his aches. "These walls have ears."

"You think I don't know _that_!?" Kripta protested. "What are they going to do to us?"

"I don't know. They wanted us for something..."

"...They pulled me away from my Christian, Anzy!" she blurted out in whimpered shrill.

"Kripta!" Anzio seethed out to calm his rattled sister. "Whatever happens, we must stay strong. It could be the only thing that might get us through this somehow."

Kripta took a deep breath and sniffed her nose to clear it from her crying. She turned with her back against the wall and sat beside her brother, who was rearing the pain of his overworked muscles.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps of robots coming down the corridor. It was faint at first, but the metal clanging sound that their legs and feet produced became eerily louder. Every step they took made her heart quicken in pace as the bots came closer. She could feel the surge from her adrenalin glands exploding as her fear triumphed over her will to stay calm. When they were a mere pace away, she grabbed her brother with an iron clutch. When the door snapped as it was unlocked and opened...she was petrified, saved for her shivering limbs as her adrenalin pumped faster through her purple bloodstream.

The harsh florescent light rained in her eyes, blinding her as her pupils constricted at a painful pace. She struggled to open them, but the burning pain nailed them shut.

"Get up!" one of the bots shouted. Its distorted voice box made Kripta freeze even more in terror.

"We said, GET UP!" came the other.

She looked up and forced her eyes open, seeing the burning picture of the round shape of the bots, who were silhouetted behind the wall of white light. The image made her quiver uncontrollably in a striking second.

With the mechanical limbs creating the groans that the machines couldn't duplicate as grunts from the lack of lungs in their metal shells, they trudged forward and grabbed Kripta off the cold damp floor. While one handcuffed her, the other violently picked Anzio up and slammed him against the grey wall of the makeshift holding room. Manipulating his right arm behind him, Anzio saw no reason to resist the bot as his joints protested his actions with the searing pain. When the bot was done cuffing him, it violently pushed Anzio out the door. He tried to stop himself, but with his arms behind him, he lost his balance as he slammed against the wall outside of the room, slumping to the ground, dazed. Kripta was grabbed underneath her right arm and thrusted towards the door. As the bot guided her, the other droid picked her stunned brother off the ground and shoved him forward.

They made their way outside briefly. Kripta only caught a small glimpse of a hill that had trees scattered all around it to her right. But the peaceful scenery changed when they were hustled through two metal double doors as they made their forced way into a one-story compound.

It was dark inside. What little light that the compound had only exposed the long, narrow corridors and the overhead piping. Loud, terrible groaning noises rained in her ears as they passed the signs that generated them. Most were over doors that marked where certain tooling were located, others noting experimental labs.

Kripta felt terror bolt through her like freezing water when they stopped in front of door, stenciled letters reading: "BIOMETRIC LAB."

The door slide open with a hiss as the two bots jabbed their captors inside.

"Where do you want them?" asked the bot that was hovering over Kripta.

A thin metal chassis of a crudely designed tech-bot turned around to study his next two experiments. Its face looked like the skull of an Overlander, but in place of its nose was one giant cybernetic ocular, glowing crimson. Twitching its mechanical pupil as it moved closer to its specimens, its permanent stainless steel smile struck fear into both of the Chameleons.

"Over here," it said. Its voice box sounded how it looked; demonic.

Kripta and Anzio were manhandled towards the tech-bot. It had no metal shielding around its arms, exposing its hydraulic parts and wires with a glimmering glare from the few overhead surgical lights in the blackened room. Kripta watched as it picked up a metal gun with a vial that stuck out from the top. As the Eggbot moved her closer to the tech-bot, she saw a needle protruding out from it. Anzio was the first to get stuck with it. With a sharp hiss from the pull of the trigger, he fell to the ground without so much of a protest from his lungs. When the silver bot moved closer to Kripta, she saw it wore a white apron that was covered with purple blood stains. This made her start to cry in a heartbeat as she tried to fight the steadfast grip of the bot with her screams, fearing that she was never going to wake up as the tech-bot drew closer and...

* * *

How'd I do on the ending? Well, next I get to show you all my crazy side. Do you remember Stenson from the first book. I had a request from a friend that I should bring him back, bring out his history of why he's in the Dark Legion compared to "who" he is. One of those bad troopers gone good. I'm glad I did...I ended up getting a bit of relief from the doom and gloom and brought some comedy to the story.

So...lets have fun some with the Dark Legion...as they sail to of all places, Albion.


	8. Albion

* * *

Greetings and welcome. I know some of you all must be thinking that I am some doom and gloom guy who's got depressing issues to work out. Actually no! Yes the story is mostly sad and brings thoughts out that makes people wonder about my pschye. But so far, it's only been my OC's who I've either killed off or place the real emotional burden on. 

This chapter changes that, and I can honestly that I really love this chapter and the follow-up after the next. I get to bring my true-self out in this and show my crazyness. But yet, as this one was fun to write, it was also nerve raking at the same time. Jokes and comedy are a pain in the tail to put into a story. You have this wonderful joke or line that you want to use but you have to work a scene out to use it. It can be like pulling nose hairs.

I also use suggestive material in this so **BE WARNED! **This chapter and the one I JUST wrote has put the rating to mature for this book. I hope this doesn't kill the readers from viewing it.

So anywho...this was a crazy idea that I had and puts the question out: "What would happen if the Dark Legion found Albion." Well, here's my take...and we get to see a character come back from the first book...and he has friends. Yanar and Gala-Na also make their apperences and Rob-O will be mentioned, plus seen in the follow-up. But you have to get through the next one to see it. And I'm not funny in the next one.

Disclamer: I observe the rights of the original fandom character's creators and stand to gain no profit from their work.

Enjoy.

* * *

**Albion**

by: Mauser

* * *

From his vantage point, the sea was as smooth as glass. The thick, cumulus clouds hampered the mid-morning sun just enough to lessen the thermals from the sea; in which he wanted to ease the strain on his feathered wings. But nevertheless, he pressured on; searching for his white beacon to bring forth what he had clutched in his talons. He soared a bit further before he felt himself about to stall to the water. Flapping his wings several times, he pushed onwards, sweeping his head from side to side, pivoting it as he searched the open sea. After a long moment of flight, he saw it. A ship with a single stack that trickled out white smoke, sailing towards him and disturbing the calm, morning waters. When he was barely over it, he swept his wings back and pointed his black beak towards the bow of the ship, diving down towards it as if it was prey.

* * *

Battle hardened was an understatement in describing him. He hardly had any skin left on his snout, except the last patch that ran down the left side of his upper and lower jaw. The rest was metal: silver plates that were conjoined as if a drunken engineer/surgeon tried to put a jigsaw puzzle together with black lines tracing the square and rectangle patterned plates that seemed to overlap each other. Even half of his black nose wasn't his.

As the _Hawking_ barreled forward across the East Ocean, the assaulting wind kicked up his five biological dreads, leaving the three metal replacement hanging still in the breeze. The half cybernetic –and partially by choice– red furred echidna turned and faced the bow of the ship, nodding as a few refuges passed by him partaking liberty of the fresh free air. His left eye was a machined replacement, fighting diligently to adjust to the bright daylight while still scanning the clouds for his feathered partner-in-war. He closed his right so as not to induce vertigo over his senses as he zoomed the artificial irus of his left. When the sunlight became too bright --for he was practically staring right at it– he darkened the image with just a few wavelengths from his brainwaves. With the glare dissipating, he saw his Osprey fast approaching him from the air. The echidna held out his left arm, exposing his brown, three inch thick leather glove to the elements, its sleeve almost touching his elbow that was covered by a black, canvas skinned jacket.

He watched as the osprey flapped its wings hard to slow his decent from the fast dive. When the bird-of-prey drew closer, he opened his tail feathers and glided his landing onto his master's arm.

"Land, Master," the bird said in a triumphant, but low voice, "but not safe," he added. He folded his wings behind his back and snatched the wired strands from his talons with his beak and offered it to his master. The echidna took it with his cybernetic right black gloved hand and studied it. The sensor that was programed into his ocular brought up data that identified copper the strands from the stripped bundle of wires. "The Guardian has lead us to danger, Master. I picked that bundle from a dead Eggbot!" the bird quickly said.

"Was this on an island?" the echidna asked in deep, raspy voice that was his own; and also not by choice.

"No, Master."

"What we are looking for is a small island, Seminole," the echidna redirected, still keeping his voice low from the desperate people that were no more than an earshot away. Last he wanted was a panic because of assumptions.

"I saw none, Master. I went about twelve clicks into the mainland and only saw more land." The black and white osprey paused for a brief span before he revealed the horrors that his ears picked out. "I heard screaming, Master! It was beyond my sight, but I heard screaming from both male and female alike. The Guardian has sent us on a course to fail Kommissar, Master. "

"That will be all, Seminole!" the echidna ordered deeply, his voice growling as a harsh whisper. "Remember, it was a Guardian who asked us to help defend them. I'm sure the younger one thinks the same way in looking after his people."

The Dark Legionnaire looked at the wire strands once more before he placed them in his jacket pocket, exchanging them for a clump of mincemeat that he feed to his Osprey. Seminole took it and began to carefully balance himself atop his Master's arm while holding his reward for his morning errand. He took two hard looks around him and the sky before he unfolded his wings and drew them inwards to shield himself from other would-be predators from robbing him of his meal. The echidna smiled, knowing it was instinct for Seminole rather than fear itself.

He slowly turned and faced the rear of the ship, seeing more of the desperate refugees huddled around each other by the railings. He held his arm out and looked over his bird-of-prey, showing his satisfaction with his friend. His lifeline from the air.

But he still kept their relationship professional in the long run.

"I need to talk to Field Marshal Stenson about your findings. While I do so, you can dine on a stowaway rat I found for you."

"Is it fresh, Master?" Seminole asked in a murderous voice.

The echidna let out a devious smile. "It's still alive for you to kill, my feathered comrade."

* * *

If he stared any harder, he could've broken the mirror. Stenson hated mornings, and his face beamed his discomfort right back at him. Stiffening his interlaced hands in front of his two narrow slits of metal for a chest, he sighed.

"Last one, darling," his mistress cooed from behind him. She wasn't really that, but the name made things more interesting for the two in their aging relationship. Twenty years of marriage tended to get boring for some...but not for them. Their bond was strong and being in the Dark Legion actually strengthened it.

"Any rust this time?" he grumbled, never looking away from himself.

Lar-Na held his last metal dread up to her deep emerald eyes and looked it once over. "No... I think our treatment is working." Then she leaned over to his ear that was nothing more than a triangle shaped hole on the side of his head. "And it's giving me some _ideas_," she cooed with a lustful whisper.

"Don't let your imagination ran away from you, dear," Stenson commented sternly, still staring hard into the wooden framed mirror. At this point, he even hated the oval shape of it.

With a crooked smirk, she took the bottle of three-in-one oil and squirted a large amount into her blue furred hands. After rolling the amber oil around in her palms, she reached up and grabbed Stenson's last metal dread that was on the right side of his head. She gave him a hard playful tug as she began to lather the metal lock with the oil. The saltwater was making his and some of the other Dark Legionnaires' metal substitute for locks rust, along with some of their other replaced anatomy, form spots of rust.. The oil treatment was a very crude method to cease the progression of the orange iron-oxide.

But their lives somewhat depended on it.

"Do you always have to be such a grouch in the morning?" Lar-Na asked him as she gave Stenson another hard tug to break his grumpy cycle.

"Precisely, my love; it's the morning," spat back Stenson through the mirror. A long moment of silence filled the air before Stenson asked his next line of thoughts, his voice indifferent again; "Anything happened last night while you were on watch?"

"Nothing in the way of action...but we had two pass away in the infirmary last night. Health complications, plus the strain of the journey."

"Which, I hope ends today for their sake," Stenson added with a sigh. "Did I hear a hint of sincerity in your voice from last night's loss?" he asked quickly as he looked up at his wife through the mirror.

"Remember darling, we both listened to Luger's teachings before his change of command," she said as she snugly traced the tip of his metal lock into place with finesse.

"Yes, I remember; including his demotion," Stenson almost snapped back. "Funny how we make our leaders step down; either asking them passively or by violence."

"Hmm, such is the way of the Dark Legion," Lar-Na cooed again. She then started rubbing Stenson's chest in a broad circular motion, tracing his bare fur over the few metal components that littered his front and back as deep slashes. "Why do you let me get bored on the night watch? You have all the fun during the day."

"Because I need to be out and show my face to the desperate. Their lives depend on their motivation to carry-on."

Lar-Na leaned forward and grasped her arms around him. "Is that Luger's teachings, darling?"

Stenson mused at her question, his face deadpan across the mirror. "No...mine."

He stood up from the backless stool as he gave a loving squeeze to his equal. She returned it before she knelt down and grabbed the last half of Stenson's black cotton jumpsuit, helping him get his arms through the sleeves and adjusting his collar and cloak. After Stenson snapped his choke collar across his muscular neck, he and his wife glimmered at his reflection in the mirror.

"Now there's my Field Marshall...my warrior," she said with a playful voice, stroking his back with a soft touch.

"Captain...captain," he reminded her with small whiff of agitation; he hated that name as well. _"Damn demotions!"_

"Only at sea my love," she said in a smug voice.

He turned away from the mirror and looked at his blue echidna wife. She still wore her black blouse that traced over every curve of her body, arousing him along with a smile. He placed his hands around her arms and drew her close to him, kissing her with the most gentlest touch of the lips. She returned it, but harder and with more blinding passion, rubbing her hand along his natural dreads. Stenson soon did the same as they held onto their now passionate kiss, tracing her locks that ran down to the small of her back, including her lone cybernetic replacement. Giving him no chance to think, she snatched his left hand from around her back and forced it on her right breast, letting him grope it as she moved her passionate kisses down his neck.

Their moment was shattered by a knock on their wooden cabin door.

"Oh...must be my errand boy and his feathered friend," Lar-Na partly grumbled out in the ear of Stenson, releasing his hand from her chest.

"What does _he_ want?" Stenson said, showing his agitation from the intruding knock breaking their moment.

"Probably to report," she snidely said. "Come."

The brass and nickle door handle snapped as it was opened, exposing the short stature of Sergeant Wesson. Coming in, he saw instantly his two superiors holding each others hands and looking at him crossly.

"I'm not intruding, am I?" he asked sincerely in his raspy voice.

"What is it, soldier!?" snapped Lar-Na.

Wesson gave a curt bow. "Seminole has returned, mistress. He brings evidence of land." Then he produced the wire strands from his jacket pocket. "But it's not safe."

"Bring it here, Wesson," Stenson ordered, "I don't have that eye like you do."

Wesson bowed halfway as he walked over, still cowering his head as he gave Stenson his Osprey's findings. Stenson studied it hard as he handed the braided strands of wire over to his wife.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Innards from a dead bot..."

"...I knew you shouldn't have trusted the Guardian!" Lar-Na snapped to her equal, her jade eyes turning to crimson. "He wants us to fail Kommissar."

Stenson briskly shot his hand up to calm his wife. "Silence!" He then turned back to Wesson. "Was there any indications of land before the shoreline?"

"My bird said nothing of such island. If I may say so, Field Marshal..."

"...Don't!" Stenson barked, knowing that the young sergeant was about to agree with his wife. "What's the distance?"

Wesson took a deep breath and sighed with a hint of protest. "He was gone for two hours. I venture to guess we're possibly an hour out or less from our current position. We are close."

Stenson mused over Wesson's low, raspy voice and nodded. "Very well, you are free to go, Sergeant."

Wesson bowed his head and took his leave --with great satisfaction for once.

When the door closed, Lar-Na looked right at her husband and bared her fiery eyes at him. "Don't _EVER_ silence me in front of the men again!"

"They're mine, remember!? You're just along for the trip!"

"Is that all I am to you–baggage?" she scoffed, her eyes eating him with anger.

Stenson looked over her finely trimmed body that she managed to keep up for over forty years, halfway winking his right eye as he traced her black silk cotton blouse again:

"And very nice baggage at that."

She moved her trim body across the small void that separated them and placed her hand on Stenson's cheek, looking up at him from the three inches that separated their height. "You got that right, sport." She mused at his face for awhile longer before she voiced her next round of thoughts. "So...what of this land that we seek? The Guardian doesn't seem to be putting his people in his best interest."

Stenson took her hand in his. "_Guardians_, my love. There were two onboard with us."

"Really!?" Lar-Na said with surprise. "I don't remember the Guardian Locke coming with us."

"No, wasn't him. This one was young, but older than this _Knuckles_ that we kept hearing about."

"Who you finally got to meet."

"Yes...I can see why Lien-Da hates him, fears him, and yet, respects him. Probably why she relied on some of my operational plans to try and kill him," he said with a hint of agitation but still managed to smile. "But this other one...he bore scars on his face and chest."

"What did he say about them?" Lar-Na asked intrigued.

"Nothing...I never once got a chance even to talk to him. He skulked away from me and the rest of us the whole time he was here. He's running from something, that much is evident."

Lar-Na shrugged her shoulders at the comment. "So this place?" she asked again.

Stenson nodded his head to his wife. "Albion. From what the Guardian told me, they will accept our refuges and take good care of them."

"But there is no sign of this...Albion?" she festered

"I know, dear. Knuckles did say it _was_ hidden."

Lar-Na crossed her arms along with her face, giving her husband the dreaded "look" that coward all married men. "So... we're just going to waste our time and resources just to look for this place...near occupied land!?" she shrilled. "Where is your sense of tactics..._dear_!?"

"In faith this time, my mistress," Stenson replied, looking down on the cheap brown carpet of their cabin.

It hit home to Lar-Na at that instant. When the _Hawking_ had sailed right into the patrol zone of the Dreadbot, she was down below the whole time, trying to do everything she could to help the refugees from panicking after the Plunger had saved them from Eggman's torpedo. The explosion rattled everyone except for her and Stenson's accompanied Dark Legionnaires, and she knew her place was to keep everyone calm so her husband could win the fight without distractions. She knew fell well that a distracted solider was a dead one.

"You really trust this Guardian?" she asked softly, more as a statement.

Stenson placed his hands around hers and held them up waist high. "History shows that we should. They wouldn't jeopardize their own people for cheap political points against us. It's not like them. On top of that, they saved us three times in the span of an hour." Stenson squeezed his wife's hand for assurance. "We trust them this time."

Lar-Na smiled and shook her head. "Of all people I had to get conned into getting _married, _it had to be you. I'm still surprised that the Legion has kept you around after that little stunt with me."

"Us dear..._us_," Stenson reminded his lovely wife of their "little" operation "I couldn't have done it without you."

Lar-Na nuzzled her head up to the love of her life and wiped away all traces of his agitation with a gentle kiss. "And I would do it again. No matter what out traditions a..."

She felt it coming; a tightness in her chest; a different pattern in her breathing. Before long she coughed. At first, they started as pants, but she soon was enveloped with the torture of trying to breathe over the hard, forceful coughs. Stenson did as a good loving husband was supposed to do, or at least that was what he had read; he held her, rubbing her arms and shoulders as she suffered through her ordeal. For awhile, her coughs lightened up for her, but only to come back with a vengeance when she thought she had won. The second wave made Stenson realize that she was getting worse...with what, he didn't know.

Her last cough was almost a gagging choke. She almost collapsed to the ground if it wasn't for Stenson holding her against his chest. Soon, her breathing progressed to something of normalcy, but not without the tremors of small airway spasms reverberating in her tender lungs.

"I think you've been up way too long," Stenson softly said to his now weakened wife.

"I'm...fine," she replied, trying hard to catch her breath.

"No you're not --you've been getting worse."

Lar-Na shook her head, musing for another excuse that would calm her husband; "It's the humidity, darling..."

"...Now that's a load of dog squeeze!" Stenson sternly remarked snidely, "You started this six weeks ago, and _yet_, you still haven't done what I've asked. You need to go see a _proper _physician, dear."

Lar-Na looked up at her caring husband, her eyes asking for forgiveness for something that she had no control over. "I'm fine, Stenson. Could just be the summer air."

Stenson just held her, squeezing her head into his so she would stop making hollow excuses to him. "Stop denying this...for _me_."

* * *

The mess hall, in Wesson's eyes, looked like what it was named–a mess. If it wasn't for the sea of desperate refugees in the large hall, one of the largest compartments on the _Hawking, _it would much resemble a convening hall for high ranking Generals or dignitaries. But instead, the white dining hall was overshadowed by the gloom from the faces of its occupants. Mothers tried their best to feed their children, either by mouth or telling them to eat their grits. Old echidnas only wishing that their mothers were still around to help feed them. The room could have burst from the overabundance of sound that blossomed throughout it. It wasn't mostly conversations, but of screaming kids and crying elders. Wesson couldn't help but feel guilty as he searched the room, trying to find a place to sit among the desperate faces. Pride was rigidly anchored in him as he stood at a relaxed attention, his shoulders back, and his face deadpan to the four winds.

And that was what made him feel guilty. He stood with pride amongst those who had lost it.

As Wesson stood there holding his tray, he could tell that the cooks were either losing motivation as well as the people they feed, or they were running out of things to make. The night before saw the prelude of that: little meat and more greens –something that his stomach somehow despised. This morning was showing the next chapter: runny grits and a pair of pancakes that seemed to be petrified. He almost made himself gag when he concluded that he was going to experience what it was like to eat a sponge. The only thing that looked enticing to the young Dark Legionnaire sergeant was the two apples he snagged from a basket.

He was three months shy of being eighteen, but his experiences made him feel that much older. Some of his cybernetic parts were mostly vital replacements of his anatomy that he lost in the ever growing conflict between Eggman, the Dingos, and the Frost Legion. Wesson was actually grateful that he was chosen to be one of the three troopers to aid the Field Marshal and his "wife." He needed to recharge with a little tranquility in his life from the wars, and he knew he could find it with the Field Marshal.

Wesson had fond respect for Stenson, unlike his superiors.

The Field Marshal was too much of a romantic in the eyes of the other Dark Legionnaires. He did unnatural things in his life and on the battlefield that seemed so alien to the cause of Technocracy. One of the reasons was the teachings of Luger before the Grand Marshal went missing. Stenson applied his lessons to such a substantial degree that he did what Luger did. He got married. It was something that the Dark Legion looked down upon when Kragok took over in his father's stead. But the tactics Stenson used worked just as well as his marriage. And that was how he climbed the ladder in a society that would rather kill than fall in love.

"Sergeant Wesson!" came a voice filled with military command.

Wesson turned to his left and faced a row of tables to see a cybernetic arm waving at him. He noticed the three fingers right off as his Lieutenant. He nodded with an even face and marched his way over to him. As he drew closer, he could see that the Lieutenant wasn't alone.

"Hello, Ell–Tee," he greeted with a curt nod as he stood in front of him. "Corporal Vickers," he nodded again to the red Dark Legion trooper that sat to the left of the Lieutenant.

"Have a seat, trooper," said Ell-Tee. His left arm gleamed in the overhead lighting as it was polished with great attention to detail on the Lieutenant's part. "News from Seminole?"

Wesson took his seat on the cold bench and looked around him. There were too many ears. "Not here, sir."

The Lieutenant nodded his head in understanding, pulling his heavy, thick locks off the floor. Wesson wondered how Ell–Tee could not strain his neck with all the metal that laced around his red locks. With a inward smile, a thought came to him, wondering if Ell-Tee would change his name even "when" he got promoted. He was well past his prime to just be a menial officer.

But like Stenson, they were considered almost like black sheep aside from Vickers. He was fresh and unspoiled from Mobianility

"Don't eat the grits, sir," said the corporal unevenly, his head uncovered from the hood of the robe he wore, "you might drown."

"Thanks for the warning, Vickers. How's the leg?"

"Not as sore as yesterday, sir, but I spent an hour this morning cleaning the rust off the ribs of the flex joints. This is getting aggravating, Wesson."

"I've noticed the Field Marshal is using oil," commented Ell-Tee from his tray. "Might want to try it, trooper."

"And walk around with that mess sticking to my uniform...if that's what you call this," Vickers said, studying his black robe for a moment.

"You might get tetanus if the iron oxide gets into your blood stream, Corporal!" Wesson snidely pointed out as he picked up one of his apples. "But, I do like the idea of lock jaw in your case," he grinned, placing his apple in his metal jaw that stopped at the fur line of his face.

Vickers was about to tell Wesson what he could do to himself in his free time when he noticed Lar-Na coming up behind the sergeant with two trays in her hands.

"Good morning, Mistress," said Vickers, "may I assist you in..."

"...Don't suck up to me, Corporal! I'm not in your chain of command." Lar-Na hissed out. "Ell-Tee, you about finished?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Good, take this up to Stenson on the bridge. He needs to have a talk with you."

Without a word or a nod, Ell-Tee sprang up from his seat and took the tray from Lar-Na's hand and left the mess hall. Afterwards, the overbearing woman sat down beside Wesson and seemed to have relaxed as she did. "What's to drink around here?" she asked calmly.

"Water. The milk is being rationed to the women and children," replied Wesson in his low, raspy voice.

"I take it we are running low?" Lar-Na asked with a grumble. Wesson only nodded with his eyes as he took a bite from his apple. She pursed her lips before she carefully stating her thoughts while holding back what she knew was going to be another round of coughing:

"I hope we find this place."

* * *

"Captain on the Bridge!"

Stenson took a long look around the room as he felt his sense of duty coming back to him as the Petty Officer announced his presence. His crew was ever watchful from their stations, waiting for their next orders while scanning the horizon for land.

"Report," he finally said as he moved towards the compass.

"We think we've spotted land, sir," reported the petty officer from behind Stenson. "The horizon is becoming rigid."

"Estimated distance?" Stenson asked next.

"Roughly ten miles, sir."

"Very well. Engines to standard running order. Weather?"

A well dressed echidna stepped forward with a clip-board in his hands; "All clear from our scopes."

"Radar and Sonar?"

"No contacts, sir," said the Petty Officer. "Looks to be another fine, _boring_ day."

"Don't count your blessings, yet. We might be sailing into occupied land," Stenson retorted flatly, studying their corse heading.

"But what of this Albion. Surely the Guardian wouldn't lie to us?" stated the Petty Officer.

"I don't believe that either, but our scout has reported that we _are_ sailing towards danger."

Stenson remained silent after that, watching one of the crewmen operate the telegraphs that signaled the engine room to slow the ship. He thought hard of what to make of his new situation: there was no island, no white city; just the sea and the threat of hostile land beyond that. He honestly didn't want to fathom that the Guardian would want to send his own suffering people to a land that would bring more. It wasn't their way.

"_I need a second opinion about this,"_ he said to himself. He got it when he heard the heavy footsteps of the Lieutenant coming up to the bridge. Stenson turned and watched the Legionnaire enter with a morning meal in his robotic hand.

"Morning, _Captain_," greeted Ell-Tee. He much preferred Field Marshal over the latter. "Chow for you, sir."

"Set it on the table, Ell-Tee. We need to talk," said Stenson as he looked back out to the open ocean, now seeing the outline of the cliffs in the distance.

The bulky echidna did as he was told, striding the room with his natural legs as his thick dreads trailed down by his calves, almost looking as if they were a cloak. He wasn't nearly as tall as Stenson, who was about three inches taller than the average echidna, but Ell-Tee's muscle and biometric size made up for it. Patches of red fur lightly littered his body that was covered mostly with technology that his kind had embraced. The only thing that was practically untouched was his long tail.

"Stupid question, Ell-Tee," mumbled Stenson under his breath, "how would you hide a large city on an island?"

Ell-Tee didn't take long to reply. He was actually surprised that the Field Marshal didn't have the answer himself. "Easily, you cloak it."

"That's easy for _us_, but what about the people who don't embrace Technocracy like we do?" countered Stenson.

Ell-Tee cocked his head to the side with that thought. A moment later without a conclusion occurring to him, he crossed his arms while looking around the bridge. He found it flattering that he had more technology on his body than what the ship had as a whole, and it eased his tension from the long and boring voyage. He lived for combat, not mobianility. As he cast his eyes around the bridge once more, something came to him as the crew stood by their "simple"machines:

"Maybe we are assuming that they don't. Maybe they are more civilized compared to those that _we_ are surrounded by."

Stenson saw the faces of the crew look in Ell-Tee's direction. Their expressions weren't too friendly. "Watch what you say," Stenson cautioned under his breath.

"I can take 'em, Field Marshal –I could use a little action around here. After all, that bot wasn't a _problem_," snorted Ell-Tee.

"If I remember right, it was Wesson who aimed those shots..."

"...And it was my orders that he acted on," retorted Ell-Tee with a hint of a smile. "Where did you get him anyway?"

Stenson shook his head at the thought. "He needed a little time off from the front and the wars. Hard to believe that he has survived for so long being a point-man, but I gather that bird of his has to be the main reason of his prolonged existence."

"He is worth his weight in microchips, sir. His actions here and back on the Island speak it." Ell-Tee commended. "So, back to our little problem at hand, how are we going to contact people that we know exist, but don't know where they _are_?"

"I'm working on it," Stenson muttered, looking behind him at the Petty Officer, who was just standing in the corner.

"Well, radio is out of the question," Ell-Tee pointed out as he looked hard across the water.

"Shut-up!," Stenson quickly shot back, "I'm working on it." He hated being disturbed over trivial things.

A moment passed with silence until Stenson turned back towards the Petty Officer. "Get Signals on this. Be ready to write a message."

"Ready, sir!" shouted an echidna from the other side of the bridge.

"Send this: 'We are Echidnas seeking sanctuary from Angel Island. Break. We hold starving women and children along with the ill and wounded. Break. Please help. Break.' That is all."

Ell-Tee watched the crewman pass the information on to a runner who soon disappeared off the bridge. He then looked back over to Stenson. "You're not worried that the enemy might see the light from the shutter?"

"We are a white ship on the open ocean, Ell-Tee," Stenson said with a uneven look. "That makes us a nice bomb-magnet. The way I see it, this could be our only chance to get these people to safety. From the looks of my runny breakfast, we can't turn back anyhow."

"Yes, sir," Ell-Tee fought to say over his agitation.

"But," Stenson added, sensing the change in the Lieutenants voice, "it doesn't mean we have to chances sitting down. Get the main weapons online, plus all able bodies with small arms. Make it quiet so we don't arouse fear on the ship."

"Yes, _Captain_!" Ell-Tee decried.

Stenson shook his again as he stood. "Don't worry, it'll be back as Field Marshal when we're done."

* * *

It didn't take long for Stenson's orders to be carried out. He tried to feel upbeat about it, but with every passing mile without any response, a sinking feeling started to come over him. He was beginning to fear that he should have stuck with the original plan. He traversed the sea with his eyes, every now and then glancing at Wesson, who was perched at the controls of the five inch gun on the forward deck, to keep his eyes entertained.

Then something caught his left eye. He stared hard at it at first before he picked up his binoculars to see what the black smudge was on the horizon.

"BOAT OFF THE PORT-BOW!" shouted someone from outside the bridge.

The only glimpse that Stenson could get before he lowered his glasses and walked outside onto the landing was a small speedboat that was racing towards them. He couldn't see the occupants from their distance, but he knew who could.

"Wesson, friend or foe!?" he hollered from the side of the bridge.

The sergeant closed his right eye and zoomed in on the racing speedboat with his left. At first, he could only make out the outline of the sleek hull, but with another passing brainwave to his cybernetic eye, he saw a glimmer of hope that fluttered in the wind.

"Echidnas, Field Marshall!" Wesson shouted back with his raspy voice.

"That's _Captain_, Sergeant!" Stenson quickly reminded Wesson. "Are they armed?"

"Yes, sir; small arms only!"

"Okay, stand-by at you station, Wesson," Stenson ordered, looking down on the main deck for his subordinate. "ELL-TEE!"

"Yes, Sir!" shouted up the Lieutenant.

"Get some people on the gangway and keep your weapons low. We don't need to spook these guys."

"Understood, Captain!" Ell-Tee confirmed with a hard nod.

Stenson turned back into the bridge. "Engines to slow. Petty Officer, get down to the gangway and give our guests a welcome reception. I'll be down as soon as I can."

"Yes, Captain!" said the brown echidna. He adjusted his blue peacoat to were it was pressed firmly against his chest before exiting the bridge. He hurried down the steps without a moments thought, dodging onlookers who were now seeing the speeding boat coming towards the _Hawking_.

When he touched down on the main deck, Lar-Na came out of a hatchway in front of him. "What's going on?" she asked.

"There is a boat coming, Milady. Echidnas!" he breathed out.

"Really!?" she shrilled with surprise.

"Yes, Milady. Stenson's on the bridge getting the ship ready for them to board."

Lar-Na smiled and nodded at the Petty Officer. "Okay, carry-on," she said. "Be nice!" she quickly added before the Petty Officer turned away.

"Ha...you telling me to be _nice_? I'm not the one who replaces body parts for the fun of it!" he sniggered as he turned away from her.

Lar-Na watched the brown echidna bolt to the gangway as she grabbed the railing to climb up the stairs to her equal. She only took one step before casting a long stare up to her destination. The sight haunted her as she felt her chest slowly tighten, urging her to cough again. She gave out a shallow one before she decided that her journey up to her husband could be the death of her.

And at that moment, she felt ashamed of her denial to Stenson.

* * *

The Field Marshal, smiled as he watched the speedboat trace a long, wide sweeping turn that brought it alongside the _Hawking_. Gauging at how the operator brought the boat up to the gangway, which was very precise and uniformed, he knew the Echidnas that were about to step aboard demanded great respect. Especially living so close to occupied lands.

"Steady. No sudden jerks, helmsmen," he calmly ordered.

"Aye, sir," replied the young echidna.

--

Yanar had never attempted this before, but the driver said it was a piece of cake. It was all the more reason that he wanted a life jacket. As the large white ship drew closer, he felt the butterflies in his stomach multiply as he saw the gangway start to lower down.

"You sure about this," he asked skittishly at the female driver.

"Yea' I'm sure, Ambassador. All you have to do is grab the handle of the gangway and swing on. C'mon, where's your sense of adventure?

Yanar just stared towards his next great leap in diplomacy. "Retired when I found _Journey's End_," he murmured aloud. _"And there isn't any Guardian to save you if you fall this time."_

He began to make out the figures on the railings plus a few on the gangway. He shifted himself around to the four guards he had with him, their slim plasma rifles pointed skywards. "Okay, no aggressiveness. Only two come with me, the rest of you just stand-by till I give you the word to speed back home. From their signals, this could be cut and dry."

"Get ready, Mr. Ambassador. We're coming alongside," came the driver.

"Okay, keep your weapons shouldered...and be nice!"

Yanar leaned himself against the edge of the boat. He tried to gain his courage for a bit, but it all went away when the boat sunk down when the girl let off the throttle. With that, he turned to his nearest Centurion Officer with a worried look plastered on his face.

Yanar didn't have to ask.

"I'll go first, Ambassador. Show you it can be done," the blue helmeted echidna said, his face smiling under the thick goggles.

Yanar let out a small sigh, "Thanks, officer."

When it came time, the blue clad echidna jumped onto the gangway with the help of one of the crewman. It looked easy enough for Yanar but the flowing water underneath him said otherwise. He watched as the crewman on the ship wrapped his left arm around the railing support, and leaned out over the water with his right arm extended for Yanar. Saying his last prayer to Aurora, he grabbed the echidna's hand and pushed off from the boat.

A large sigh expelled from his lungs when both feet landed firmly on the metal pedestal. With a couple more deep breaths, he let a out a smile with his accomplishment.

"Welcome aboard!" greeted the echidna that helped him on.

"Thanks!" said Yanar joyfully, "can you please help my last officer on?"

"No problem."

Yanar followed up his first officer, holding on for dear life at the railing as he climbed the cumbersome gangway. When they reached the top, they were greeted by a brown echidna with a blue peacoat on.

"Hello, I'm Ambassador Yanar from Albion," he greeted with a smile and a stiff hand shake, looking around him at the gathered onlookers who were mostly women and children. "I understand you seek refuge from Angel Island!?"

To his utter surprise, the whole crowd erupted in a loud cheer. Soon, he felt his yellow robe, that mostly resembled a short sleeve rain coat without the buttons, being tugged on by children that strayed from their mothers to touch the new celebrity. As he greeted them in his best playful tone, he watched one of his blue, battle dressed officers give out a smile and a wave that looked like he was squeezing a ball. It all seemed surreal compared to what was being brutally transpiring on the mainland side in Deer Wood Forest. He shook the troubling thoughts away as he eyed the ship with a gaping smile.

"I'm Petty Officer Trent. The Captain is most anxious to see you."

"So am I, sir! Tell me, how has your journey been? Without peril I hope?" asked Yanar.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Ambassador," Trent replied with a dead monotone. "I'll take you to him."

Yanar waved down to the speedboat before he made his way across the sea of people before him, leaving both his officers to keep the people entertained. As he heard the driver give throttle to the engines, he slowly followed the Petty Officer to the stairs. Before climbing up, he stopped and gazed at Lar-Na in all her beauty. It was one of the few times he had seen a blue echidna, and she was a fine example at that.

* * *

"_Yes, I know...my wife is beautiful! Now get your tail up here so you can tell me where I can park my ship."_

Stenson couldn't help but smile and worry at the same time. He loved when any man would stop and gaze at his wife..._his_ wife, but he had other things on his tactical mind that was driving him insane.

"Engines to full, keep her steady!" he ordered through the door.

When Stenson peered back out, he saw the Petty Officer escorting the brown echidna in the yellow robe up to him. But then his sight went back to his wife. She was coughing hard again, almost being sent her to her knees this time.

"Wesson!"

"Yes, Captain!" decried the familiar raspy voice from behind him.

Stenson lowered his voice with sincere worry mixed with his order. "Help my wife to our cabin, please."

Wesson left his post without a word; running as quickly as he could to attend his duty to Lar-Na. Shaking his head, Stenson marched back inside the bridge and gazed out the windows. The land was treading closer and all he could think of was:

"_Wait till this guy gets a load of me!"_

"Captain, Stenson," announced Petty Officer Trent at the door. "I present to you, Mr Ambassador Yanar of Albion!"

Stenson stood erect, facing the door when Yanar entered. It had been a long while since he had seen a true smile on someone's face. To his disappointment, it vanished when Yanar laid eyes on him. "Ambassador Yanar," he began with a stern but even voice, "I am Field Marshall Stenson; Captain of the _Hawking,_ and I welcome you onboard."

Yanar just stood there, looking over the tall Dark Legionnaire with surprise as he tried to find his diplomatic-self again. He only heard rumors of them, but never once had he seen one. Gossip this time didn't spread enough lies to paint the true image of what lay before him. He had yet to see Ell-Tee.

"My–My apologies for gawking, Field Marshall," he finally said after a moments hesitation.

"Understandable, Mr. Ambassador. And you can call me Stenson, since you are not in my army, nor part of my crew."

Yanar bowed to him in respect. "That is very gracious of you, Mr Stenson."

"_Great, I am turning my mission over to a bunch of pacifists,"_ Stenson voiced to himself upon seeing Yanar bow to him. To the Field Marshall, it was a sign of weakness; not diplomacy.

"Where is _this_ city?" he asked next.

"Just follow the speed boat towards _Journey's End _and it will be your pilot. Tell me, how have you come to find out about us?"

Stenson turned and faced the windows again, gathering his thoughts of the long voyage. "A Guardian told us about Albion. He said that we could come to you for safety until the Island was free from its enemies."

"Does that mean that they are not here to live in harmony with us in Albion?" Yanar asked with disappointment present in his voice.

"I said nothing about harmonizing in my message!" Stenson quickly pointed out. "I only said that we seek sanctuary from Angel Island, and that we have women and children onboard along with the ill. So my question is: can you care for them?"

Yanar raised his hands chest leve, pleading as it were to calm Stenson down. "Yes we can, sir. We were just hoping that the Brotherhood had listened to our calls to bring all Echidnas back to Albion."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ambassador. That is not my mission. I am ordered to bring these people to safety and return back to the Island to retrieve more that don't belong in the fight. When the time comes, these refugees can choose to return back to Angel Island or stay with you. But for right now, I need your help for their sake."

"So which Guardian sent you?" asked Yanar after a moments thought.

"This Knuckles, who I had the pleasure to meet. He is unlike his father."

"_Knuckles_? After what we did to him, I am surprised that he even sent you our way."

Stenson nodded with a slight smirk. "He did say something to that tune, but he was hoping to let the past be forgotten for the innocent's sake."

"I've already looked beyond it, Captain. Did he say anything else?"

"No," he lied, "and not even the second Guardian that we rescued."

"What second Guardian? What rescue?"

Stenson gave a brief summary of the first day's voyage and the sinking of the Dreadbot, then the Plunger. After it was all said and done, Yanar was taken aback:

"This second Guardian, was he of the Brotherhood?"

Stenson shook his head, "I'm afraid the Brotherhood is missing. Been that way for sometime now. The only one we have right now is the Guardian Locke, and he and his son are at odds."

"Oh..." Yanar replied with a note of dissatisfaction. "So if this second Guardian isn't of the Brotherhood then, who is he?"

"I don't know," replied Stenson, "for a second, I thought he was one of us...minus the hardware. Never even got the boy's name. And he _was _just a boy."

"What made you think he was one of you?"

Stenson pursed his lips while keeping an eye on the speedboat. "He had deep scars on his face and chest, plus a stubbed lock that we would've replaced with a cybernetic one as soon as we could. He was young too, but a little older than Knuckles."

"Brother!?" Yanar quickly asked, bewildered to say the least.

"Only way I can see it, unless he came through a different zone."

"Hmm, something to look into," commented Yanar.

"Good luck, Mr. Ambassador. That Guardian has some major issues with him." Yanar turned his gaze to Stenson with inquiry in his eyes during the short pause. "Why I said I thought he was one of _us_," Stenson said with a cold voice.

Yanar stood in silence, still studying the Dark Legionnaire with a cautious awe. He didn't know how the High Council was going to take Stenson for who he was, or even how he looked. Yanar felt that he was standing beside a giant who could go from gentle to enraged just with a change in the wind. But along with the idea to fear him, came the thought to respect him just the same which wasn't for diplomatic reasons in Yanar's puzzled eyes. It was the way Stenson carried himself, standing rigidly erect with immense pride as he gave orders to the crew, that had an aura that demanded respect from anyone. In essence, Stenson was a true leader, no matter what his motivations.

"Mr. Stenson," observed Yanar after seeing the distance to the mainland beginning to decrease a little too fast for him, " we might want to slow down a bit. Our destination is rapidly approaching."

"Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Engines ahead standard!"

Yanar watched a red echidna move over to something that looked something to the effect of a baby rattler that was upside down. The echidna grabbed both handles and pulled them back, placing the arrows on the requested running order.

Stenson kept his binoculars trained on the back of the speedboat, judging the distance from the mainland to be about five miles. All of a sudden, the boat disappeared, leaving only its wake visible on the calm ocean.

"Mr. Ambassador...?"

"...It's perfectly alright, Mr. Stenson. Just keep straight and you will find _Journey's End_. You will find that we embrace technology as well as you."

Stenson cocked his head towards Yanar while leaving his binoculars pointed straight. "So where is _your_ robotic parts?" he asked with a cold, crooked smile.

Yanar swallowed hard before he replied, "We don't go to extremes, Mr. Stenson."

The Field Marshal smiled again as he looked back through his glasses. "Radar?"

"Scopes are clear, sir!" shouted one of the crewmen.

"Very well. Petty Officer, have all able hands ready at mooring stations. Secure weapons."

"Aye, sir!"

Yanar watched Trent give out the commands on a radio that was beside him, all the while still looking back over his shoulder at the approaching coast. "Might want to slow us down a bit more, Mr Stenson," he said.

"Very well. Engines one-third!" Stenson shifted his stance back to Yanar, "anything else?"

"Just keep your eyes open. You are going to like this part," Yanar smiled, hoping to calm Stenson. _"Wow...they get agitated quick!"_ he observed to his frightened self.

Stenson did just that, only peering through his binoculars every so often, looking mostly for threats on the beach and the cliffs. But with a passing quarter mile, he saw something that he didn't believe as first. A blue outline of a semi-circle started to rise out from the water, steadily increasing in diameter and size as the _Hawking_ churned closer to it. Stenson turned to Yanar, who was just smiling the whole time.

"Hold everything steady!" Stenson ordered as he marched behind Yanar and out of the bridge. He grabbed hold of the wooden railing and looked down at his passengers. Some of them were on their knees, worshiping the azure ring, while others waited with excitement to pass through it.

He felt the same way.

The bow was now under it. Stenson held his breath as he waited for his turn to pass under the power shield. He could see white buildings in the distance but only the bottom levels. And before that was a large port calling the _Hawking_ home. When the bridge passed under the ring, finally, Stenson exhaled his built up tension when his eyes gazed upon the City of Albion.

"Its beautiful...its beautiful beyond words!" he decried.

The city was majestic in a futuristic way. Buildings towered towards the sky with shapes that looked as if an engineer had let their children draft them out. Roman arch bridges connected buildings to buildings with hover cars flying around the structures, looking like dots against the white contours. For Stenson, it seemed like a dream that he remembered Luger telling him once before. A dream when the Dark Legion would find peace and build Echidnaolopis the way it was supposed to be.

The sight of Albion made him question his own beliefs in Technocracy.

Yanar stepped out from the bridge and glided beside the stunned Field Marshal. "That was my first thought as well, Mr. Stenson. Even today, I still can't describe the feeling of seeing this city." He then clasped his left hand on top of Stenson's shoulder and smiled once more; "Let me welcome you to Albion. What we call _Journey's End_."

* * *

Stenson stood by the door a while longer than he figured he was supposed to. But he didn't care. She was sleeping peaceably in the silk sheeted bed.

Two hours had passed since they made port and all he was really concerned about was his wife. He saw the sorrow being lifted from the starving and sickened people that he helped bring to this place, and he was glad to see it. But Lar-Na's coughing had shown its ugly head again when he went to get her. Nevertheless, she was stunned all the same as Stenson and the rest of the Legionnaires when they were transported through the city. There was something about Albion, Stenson noted as he gazed upon his wife during the ride over, that made her change. It was sudden and evident in Stenson's eyes. Lar-Na didn't resemble Kommissar in her own unique way. Instead, she looked as humble as he felt.

But for now, Stenson thought, it was time for a rest. He had asked Yanar to make accommodations for all of his crew, which the Ambassador proudly said he'd do, before they departed. As Stenson left the _Hawking_ with his wife and his three soldiers, he was met by an entourage of refugees. They showered them with thanks and prayers of their deeds, which unlike the scarred Guardian that had been given the same honor before them, they accepted with their thanks.

And now Stenson was leaning up against the door frame, staring at his sleeping wife. He almost felt sorry for the rest of the Echidnas back on Angel Island. They didn't have it this good. The room was more like a suite, he thought. It was huge: table stands and dressers could have held a whole shopping mall, plus the bed was large enough that it could give a quarreling couple their space if they needed it.

Stenson stepped back and grabbed the handles to the double doors, sealing his wife inside as he gently closed them. He then walked into the living room that had a couch, a chair, and a large flat screen TV that hung up on the wall away from the elegant room. There, he took off his black cloak and dropped his heavy jumpsuit down to his waist, tying the sleeves around him. The fresh air from the AC felt like ecstacy on his furred skin that he did his best to keep. The metal parts that he had on his chest were more for necessity than showing his affection to Technocracy. He didn't remember how he got his skin ripped open, but he did remember waking up and feeling the crippling pain. It still registered in his nerves when he had flashbacks from that dark time in his life. All he could figure out was that someone didn't like him very well in the Legion and they tried to resolve their hatred with brute force but just shy of the ignorance needed to kill him. To say the least it didn't work. Stenson hated to think it, but his ordeal helped strengthen his status amongst the Legion as they saw him as one who was strong and could take just about anything.

His tranquil mood was lifted by a light knock from the door. "Now what?" he muttered to himself. He stepped passed the couch, in which he laid his cloak on, and lightly trudged to the door, making sure he didn't wake Lar-Na. When he got to the double doors to the large suite, which had knobs to his surprise, he opened the right side and stood at attention in the entrance way.

He was greeted my Yanar, smiling as best he could from seeing the Field Marshal's metal slits on his bare chest. "Good afternoon, Mr. Stenson. May we come in?" he finally managed to say.

"_We_?" asked Stenson, his head cocked side ways.

"Oh," Yanar festered, "my apologizes, Field Marshal. I give you Councilwoman Gala-Na," he proclaimed, extending his right arm out to his side, "and her aids."

Stenson stood back from the entrance, letting Yanar in, but only to be met by a purple echidna soon afterwards. She stood proud in her yellow dress like a soldier, but she bowed and smiled gracefully like a politician as she made her way in. The most interesting thing that fascinated Stenson about her was her silk purple hair that ran down below her tail, almost touching her sandaled feet. He'd never seen someone grow their hair that long, and he wondered if Lar-Na would be inclined to do the same for him.

When the two female aids came in, Stenson closed the door gently. He then turned to face his new guests while remaining silent.

"I would like to start first by saying," began Gala-Na, "that the rumors precedes you kind, Field Marshal Stenson..."

"...It's just Stenson, Madam Councilmen." Stenson turned his head to the corner bedroom doors, making sure that they hadn't disturbed Lar-Na. "May we talk someplace else, please?" he asked as he turned back to his guest. "My wife needs her sleep."

Gala-Na bowed her head with her hands clasped in front of her. "It's a lovely day, Mr. Stenson. I'm sure we can appreciate it more on the balcony."

"Lead the way," Stenson returned with a brisk nod.

He followed them from the living room to a set of sliding glass doors, their curtains tan in color and seemed to liven the suite up just a little. Stenson hated white walls. It reminded him of his military schooling days when he sat for long hours in a windowless classroom with pure white walls with whole idea being so student's wouldn't deviate their attention from their studies. Daydreams might have ceased for Stenson, but the tears from boredom didn't.

The day was still fresh when they walked outside. Sea breezes kicked up the robes of the diplomats as they gracefully walked to the edge of the rounded balcony. Gala-Na's aids went to the left corner and kept an ear out while they chatted up their own conversation.

"Thank you for your hospitality, Madam Councilwomen. It is most gracious of you," politely said Stenson, his voice even but deep. It was all he could do to hopefully bring a better picture of what they perceived him as.

"It's what we do here in Albion. Especially to those who bring our own home." She held up her hand to stop Stenson from what she knew he was going to say. She saw him exhale his thoughts out in silence. "Some will go back if they please, that I understand, but many will stay."

"Don't force them, ma'am. They left oppression to find sanctuary..."

"...I understand that, Field Marshal Stenson," Gala-Na said calmly, "it will be of their own accord. But as you can see, we are without conflict here and we believe the peace and sanctity here in Albion, will win their hearts over. If they wish to return back to the Island when it is free, we will help them get back."

Stenson breathed a sigh of relief in his mind as he took the needed steps to look over the balcony wall. He crossed his strong muscular forearms as he rested upon them, gazing down the twenty story egg-shaped building. The streets were bustling with traffic and people, but the winds carried the sounds away from him. Stenson could only imagine it.

"The Guardian Knuckles asked me to deliver a message to you. Hopefully I can remember it," he said finally.

"Was he the one who sent you and the refugees from Angel Island?" Gala-Na asked.

"No, but he did save us," Stenson added. "He asked that this be a token to forget the past and that all is forgiven. He said that you would understand."

For a moment, she was silent, taking in the apology with much thought. "And I do, Mr. Stenson," Gala-Na said with a slight bow. "So tell me, since your kind was charged to bring them here, does that mean the Echidnas are united?"

Stenson shook his head as he continued to stare down at the streets, "I'm afraid not, Madam Councilwomen. My comrades are engaged in our own Civil War while the rest of the Echidnas are battling the Dingos and Eggman's forces. And afterwards, I don't know if we are going to continue with peaceful accords with the Guardians and the rest of Echidnas. Many of us still hold to our extreme ideology of Technocracy, while others still want to be simple."

Stenson then turned his full attention and beamed a cold stare at Gala-Na and Yanar: "Be glad that I am in your presence and _not_ one of my superiors."

Gala-Na nodded her head with a muffled smile. "I take it you are the lighter side of this _Legion_."

"Hardly...I'm just the only one left who has the capacity to switch over."

Gala-Na left it at that, only fathoming what deeds he had done in her thoughts. "Either way, Mr. Stenson, we are grateful of the fact that you are here. Your mission was of virtue and that is something to be proud of."

"And it still is, Milady. I have to ask you if you can resupply me and my crew so we can make the trip back to bring more. I haven't seen the latest track of the Island but I am sure it will be crossing over land pretty soon."

Yanar stepped forward; "We are working on that for you right now, sir. I'll have someone check the current plot of the Island as well, but I urge you and your crew to rest..."

"...Yes," Gala-Na agreed, "stay here for as long as you need to regain your strength. If the Island is too far out for you to make it back, you can stay until you think you can safely make it back to bring more refugees. The faces of those poor souls has me stricken with sadness."

"And the dead?" questioned Stenson solemnly.

"They are being treated with respect, Mr. Stenson," replied Yanar.

Stenson paused before he spoke again; "We started out with a hundred and fifty. The last count I had was twelve dead and about ninteen sick and injured. My medical staff did all they could for the most of them..."

"...It's quite alright, Mr. Stenson," said Gala-Na, "everything is being cared for. You are safe and so is your precious cargo. You can relax now."

Stenson let out a long sigh mixed with a troubled smile. "Madam Councilwomen, I'm afraid relaxing isn't part of my General Orders."

Yanar thought he heard a knock come from the door. He looked over through the glass door, which brought Stenson's and Gala-Na's attention to it. "I think someone is wanting in."

"Now what?" grumbled Stenson.

Gala-Na smiled and said; "It's alright, Mr. Stenson. One of my aids can get the door for you." She then looked beside the tall Dark Legionnaire. "Oh Jessie-Ca, could you be so kind and see who it is at the door."

"Yes, Milady," the girl said, gracefully bowing to Gala-Na and the rest. Stenson followed the red girl as she seemed to glide across the floor with her dress that looked more like a robe.

"There is one more thing I need to ask of you," Stenson said, switching the subject from seeing Jessie-Ca.

"Anything, Mr. Stenson," graciously replied Gala-Na.

"My wife needs to see a proper physician. She keeps coughing and it has me worried."

"Is it getting worse?" inquired Yanar out of concern.

"Yes," Stenson sighed. "I saw her this morning turn down a flight of stairs to come and see me, along with greeting you, Mr. Ambassador. She doesn't turn those things down lightly."

"We can try to arrange that, Mr. Stenson," said Gala-Na.

Stenson nodded his head as he heard heavy footsteps approaching the balcony. When he turned to look, his stare went cold: not at Wesson or Ell-Tee, but the black hooded robe of Vickers following them. The sight of the black uniform switched Stenson from his diplomatic hospitality to Field Marshal in a heartbeat.

"Take–that–hood–off now, Corporal!" he ordered sharply, keeping his voice low to not disturb the wrath that could come if Lar-Na was awoken. Vickers did as he was told, almost slapping himself upside the head as he grabbed the hood. It made Jessie-Ca giggled from behind him, seeing that the Legionnaires were echidna after all. "We are not here to frighten these people! Is that understood?"

"YES, CAPTAIN!" they all said in unison, almost making Stenson throw another tantrum from the loudness of their response.

Stenson eased his sharp stare as he looked back at Gala-Na and Yanar. "I'm sorry for my soldiers' manners..."

"...Maybe cause we lack em," snickered Corporal Vickers.

Stenson squared his shoulders along with his face. "Sergeant Wesson, if he says anything else, promote the Corporal here to flight status."

Wesson turned to Vickers, who had his head sunk lower from verbal beating, and gave out a murderous smile from under his metal snout. "It isn't the fall that kills you...it's the sudden stop!"

"Shut-up! _All_ of you!" Stenson demanded, watching his men spring to a relaxed attention. "Better! And Corporal, you do not wear that uniform while we are here!"

"But Field Marshall; this is all I have..."

"...Then liberate some cloths if you have to. It can be an old woman's night gown for all I care, just don't wear our uniform while we're here as guests."

Vickers just sunk his head even lower like a child after been given a scolding. "Yes,_ sir._"

Yanar was baffled at what had transpired, along with the sight of the replaced hardware that littered Wesson and Ell-Tee. He almost wanted to step back from the image, but he held true to his ground.

"Ambassador; Madam Councilwoman," Stenson began, pointing at each individual trooper as he went around for introductions, "this is Ell-Tee, fire support leader when he is needed. Sergeant Wesson, recon-scout –and with the replacement parts to prove it," Stenson added with slight exaggeration in his voice, "and you've met Corporal Vickers. We don't know what he is, yet, but he is still _trying_ to prove his worth."

Gala-Na held her posture, only shifting her opinion instead about the soldiers in front of her. "Are all of your kind this way?"

Stenson took note in her slight change of voice. "No...we can be much worse. Like I said, be glad it is me that's here instead of my superiors. If I was half the Legionnaire that I am suppose to be, you would have seen the Corporal, here, attempt his first and only flying lesson by now."

Yanar spoke next, his mind troubled now from what stood before him; "Does anyone else of your kind know about Albion?" his voice fixed with worry.

"It's possible, but not likely," replied Stenson, seeing where the questions were going.

Gala-Na looked at Yanar, her light blue eyes narrowing at him. He just nodded at what she was thinking.

"Our city has been tranquil for many years..."

Stenson cut off Gala-Na with a wave of his hand, "I will not tell my superiors of Albion. I'm not blinded by faith and ideology like some I know who would want to conquer this place. Actually, I think some of the Legion would actually come here to retire after their tours."

"Unlikely, Field Marshal. It _is _safe to call you that, now?" asked Ell-Tee.

"Just give me five hours before we start that again," Stenson starkly pleaded, "I would like to be _Stenson,_ myself, for at least awhile."

Ell-Tee chuckled before he continued; "You're becoming humbled, old man."

"You're not going soft on us, are you, Field Marshal?" came Wesson in his raspy voice.

"What did I just say...give me five hours, _please_," Stenson pleaded again.

Ell-Tee chuckled again, enjoying the entertainment that somehow he longed for and missed. Tracing the figure of one of the aids to Gala-Na only made him feel more secure about himself and the Field Marshal. He too was like Stenson in an odd way. He actually tolerated non-technologians to a certain degree, but it was far leaner than some of his compatriots. While he looked over the black furred echidna one last time, he saw that Jessie-Ca was eyeing Vickers almost in the same light. It brought a smile to Ell-Tee's face once more, but only to be swiped away when he saw Wesson move closer to the railing.

The Lieutenant could almost read the Sergeant's thoughts for they were scribbled on his face. "What is it, Sergeant?"

Stenson looked over his broad shoulder at the young Legionnaire, who perched his arms on the railing. Wesson leaned with his right ear out, listening intently at something that Stenson nor the Lieutenant could hear over the wind, or the cars down below and above them.

"Seminole?" asked Ell-Tee.

"No. He's resting downstairs. It's something else," replied Wesson in a eerily straight voice.

"Your new ears?" asked Stenson, knowing the Sergeant was picking out something with his latest "upgrades."

Wesson turned his head away for a moment, then tried again. There he heard the faint noise again.

"I hear screams coming from the woods on the mainland side," he finally answered.

Stenson quickly shifted himself towards the two diplomats. "Do you have a team out!?" he quickly asked out of concern, "cause if you do, it's going bad right now!"

"No!" came Yanar, "we don't venture out from the shield to do military incursions."

"You what!?" proclaimed Ell-Tee, his eyes becoming squarely attuned at what he now perceived the echidnas in Albion to be.

"It is not our way," replied Gala-Na. "We only train our Centurion Officers to be reactionary and that is how we keep ourselves at peace."

"While others die around you!?" shot back Wesson. "Those screams I'm hearing are coming from a woman..." Wesson turned his head back around, only to return his gaze to Gala-Na with a look filled with resolve; "or I should say, _did_ hear." His growl was colder than it sounded.

"Wesson..."warned Ell-Tee, seeing the Sergeant becoming agitated.

"Oh no, Ell-Tee. I'm not letting these pacifists wiggle out of this one. They're just going to sit idly by as people around them get slaughtered wholesale. I've seen too much of that the past year and there is no excuse for them to just ignore it."

"There is too much risk for us to go to war, Mr. Wesson," calmly replied Gala-Na.

"Oh yes," said Wesson, exaggerating his voice more to drive his point across, "your fancy cars and your high-rise city is at risk. How can you live with yourself when others are fighting a losing war just outside of your boarders."

"That will be all, Sergeant Wesson!" snapped Stenson with his arms stretched across his chest. "They don't see the honor in battle like we do."

Wesson snuffed at Stenson's comment. "It's not about that, Field Marshal, and you _know_ it!"

Stenson closed his eyes briefly, trying to shun his new headache away with it. His efforts were fruitless.

"Madam Councilmen, could you please leave me with my men, please?" he requested calmly.

Gala-Na bowed her head at the four. "As you wish. Come Ambassador..."

"No," came Stenson abruptly, "Mr. Ambassador stays with us."

Gala-Na rolled her eyes as she bowed again. "As you wish."

Ell-Tee watched her leave along with her aids, smiling as he saw Vickers eyeing on Jessie-Ca. When the Corporal turned his attention back to his superiors, he felt ashamed when he saw the look on Ell-Tee's face.

"Well don't just stand there, Corporal!" snapped Ell-Tee, "go after her!"

"Yes, sir!" decried Vickers as he saluted and ran off towards the door.

Stenson only chuckled as he stood erect. "The young these days."

"Blind as a bat," added Ell-Tee.

"Speaking of which," Wesson said bluntly, looking towards Yanar. He could see the Ambassador gulping when his robotic irus centered on him.

Stenson kept his arms crossed as he shifted his stance to directly face Yanar. "What's beyond the cliffs, Mr. Ambassador?" he almost seethed out.

Yanar stood still; silent, not knowing what to say. He was appointed to his position only months before, elected by the council since he was part of the Lost Tribe and somewhat the leader when they found_ Journey's End_. They gathered his experience of the outside world would be most helpful when other "beings" came calling to Albion. But they never trained him on the ways of the Dark Legion. Probably because they didn't know how, or much less knew who they were.

Yanar soon gained courage when the three took a few steps closer to him, making him fell as if he was getting backed into a corner.

"We haven't heard from our Sentry for quite sometime. He protects the entrance to Albion from the mainland side, and since the war has found the Kingdom of Merica, we haven't heard from him or his group since."

"Have you tried to make contact with him?" asked Ell-Tee.

"No. We don't venture out of the shield unless we have too."

"OH, WOW! So that's how you repay the people who keep the bad guys out," snorted Wesson. "Touching!"

"It's not my idea, it's the councils'," said Yanar, his voice asking for understanding.

"This council wouldn't be related to the one back home?" Ell-Tee asked Stenson, who let out a crooked smile briefly and folded his arms back across his chest.

"Sure sounds like it to me. I wonder if they'll let three-hundred and fifty suffer as well?" bolstered Wesson, he too crossing his arms.

"Say what?" festered Yanar.

Stenson shook his head before he told the truth about their original plan. "We were suppose to bring five-hundred with us, but our council thought that it was too risky, so, they cut us back to a hundred and fifty. Plus, they didn't have enough supplies to spare for the voyage, so we got the short end of the stick...twice."

"And like yours, I am tied to mine," pointed out Yanar. "There is nothing we can do to help those over on the mainland."

"Bravo-Sierra, Mr. Who-ever-you-are!" Wesson shot back, using the metaphor of bull squeeze in phonics to try to at least be polite about it. "The technology that I see _flying_ around here demonstrates that you can do your duty to help those who've helped you."

"Look, I'm sorry, but I can't do a thing! Besides, this isn't the first time we did this."

"What do you mean?" asked Stenson, his voice growing stern.

Yanar shook his head in frustration before he replied. "Before I came here, during the first reign of Robotnick, the Echidnas here let his minions robotoize the people beyond our boarders. We tried to take action later about it, but at the time, the war was over."

Wesson frowned again, "So that's when you only come out of your hole..."

"...It's different here from what I was used to, Mr. Wesson! I was part of the lost tribe that helped found this place along with the Guardian Knuckles. When I was young, I watched my tribesmen fight Robotnick's Swat-Bots, trying to protect me from them. Many were robotozied, but many others were also killed!"

Stenson stood silent for a moment, gathering his tactical thoughts as he went over Yanar's story. "Do you still remember the lay of the land?" he asked.

"Yes. It's called Deer Wood Forest."

"Good! Can you get about four of your best men?"

Yanar's eyes went wide when Stenson asked him that. "What...you're not going across to..."

"...I need four of your best, Mr. Ambassador. Fully equipped," said Stenson, ignoring Yanar's pessimism and turning to Ell-Tee. "Go back to the _Hawking_ and grab our weapons and gear."

"Do you want the _Diplomat_?" the half cybernetic echidna asked.

Stenson gave out a murderous smile. "Yes. _Slammers_, and armored piercing." He then turned to the Ambassador. "I suggest you get into some dark cloths, Mr. Yanar."

"What...why me?"

"Cause you are going to be our guide. I want to see what these screams are all about and to see if maybe we can possibly do something..."

"...Like maybe getting your people to see that it's okay to fight," added Wesson.

Stenson brushed off the comment as quickly as it came, "And I need you to show us the way around the Forest."

Yanar backed away and sighed. He looked at the Dark Legionnaires and realize that he couldn't back down from this. He was afraid that they might kill him if he had said no.

"Okay, I'll see what I can do, but I have no guarantees," he practically whispered out.

"That's good enough, Mr. Ambassador," nodded Stenson.

Yanar soon left the three Legionnaires to themselves on the balcony. They stood in silence for awhile, letting what they had left for dreads flutter in the wind. Stenson did worry about setting out to the other side and attracting the enemy to this peaceful sanctuary, but his duty was still to the refugees. He didn't want to come back and see his hard, righteous work, be slaughtered because of the inactions on the part of a bunch of pacifists!

"Carry out the orders and get some sleep," he said, his voice low and cold, "We're going hunting tonight."

* * *

Alright...please tell me of what you think. This came in as a whopping 12,000 word chapter and possibly the longest I've written. Next chapter like I said at the top changes. So far, possibly the saddest sections I have written.

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	9. Incorporeal

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Before we being the chapter, lets review the title: 

Incorporeal-- not composed of matter; having no material existence.

Got the idea...you sure? I know you can see his name being called out to him from his soul-equal.

Aside from trival things, this chapter as being completed is the saddest ones I have written thus far. I'm currently on one that I have been wanting to write for a long time, but...certain obligations are coming up and I have to put it on hold for a freakin month. Doesn't mean I won't write it long hand...just hope I can still read it when I begin the transcription.

Disclamer: I observer the rights of the creators of the original charcters and hold mine as my own in character and not by form. (hey just like the chapter's title)

So we begin. Enjoy and please review.**  
**

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**Incorporeal**

By: Mauser

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"_Allleeuuuuutttiiiaaann..."_

Locke's eyes shot opened, but he only saw darkness for an instant. "Who's there?" he asked quickly with a groggy but alert voice. He searched the heavy undergrowth field while he remained still in his thin sleeping bag, being cautious not to attract someone's attention with abrupt movements while trying to find the voice that awakened him He didn't get a response.

"_Don't...an...e...ple...I'm...ot..."_

It was like a garbled radio transmission. Not in his ears but in his mind. He tried to differentiate between the two voices that he thought he heard, but they were so broken up, they all sounded as one. Fear suddenly gripped him as he looked around his dark blue surroundings, he had no idea where the voices had come from. The woods were deathly quiet, their limbs still without the slightest of movement from the wind. Locke did hear a lone sparrow chirping in the distance, but he was listening intently for something heavier; something stalking him that would bring death. The sun was beginning to show its presence to the new day, but it couldn't come quick enough to ease Locke's frightened self. He hated and feared this time of the morning. The dark blue silhouettes of the trees only created more concealment to a predator that lurked in the shadows. Locke strained his eyes even further as adrenalin seemed to charge his chest with power, paying more attention to his peripheral vision than his forward sight for something that was possibly hunting him in the mist.

When logic found its way up from the pit of his stomach, he remembered what had awakened him , and he realized; _"The voice was a girl's. But where did it..." _Locke felt his heart begin to choke from the sudden terror and anguish that enveloped him when he realized who the voice was calling to.

Locke crawled out of his sleeping bag and carefully made his way over to Aleutian, stepping over the charred remains of the fire from last night. What he saw in the blue darkness of the morning made him freeze for a moment before common sense told him to move closer. Aleutian was tussling in his bag, looking as if he was trying to stay warm when his whole body was covered by it and his jacket. Then, he started to mumble in his sleep. Locke couldn't understand what he was saying, but he knew it wasn't good.

He stepped closer to his son, touching Aleutian's covered shoulder gently so as not to wake him. _"Be gentle, my son. You can fight thro..."_

"_Aleutian!..."_ cried out a female voice. Locke fired his hand backwards when the curt voice startled him, but he regained his collective self of the whole matter in an instant.

He watched as Aleutian flinched from his name being cried out to him at that same instant. Locke almost wanted to wake him, but he thought better of it, fearing it might upset everything, leaving Aleutian more bitter, and leaving Locke out in the cold and away from his son's troubled thoughts.

With the reality check now burdening over his mind, Locke took off his left glove from his hand, and placed his fingertips on Aleutian's forehead. Closing his eyes, he floated his senses through the vast traffic of brainwaves, searching for what he was looking for. He found it, and with more concentration being applied with a squint from his eyes, Locke connected...

* * *

...The setting sun was overcasted by sick grey clouds that poured rain in buckets, soaking the autumn ground beneath him. But even so, Locke wasn't getting wet. He didn't even feel the heavy rain drops touching his furred skin. 

He saw he was still in the woods, but not in the same place where he just left mentally. The trees were different. There were less of them from what he could see, and their leaves had turned golden brown. The air was cool in a dry way, even with the rain coming down around him. With another glance at his new surroundings, he concluded he was on the top of a mountain: rocks, a small incline to his left, and the dry air made it evident.

Locke took a few steps forward before he stopped. He swore to Aurora that he heard voices through the heavy rain. He waited, listening intently over the pounding rain drops on the fallen leaves for what he heard.

There! It wasn't much but it was enough for Locke to gauge where the mumbles were filtering from which was just off to his right. Satisfied, he took off on a slow walk, almost hunching himself lower to the ground so as not to disturb the fallen leaves with his heavy bolt-laced boots.

Carefully navigating around a patch of dogwood trees that looked more like toothpicks, Locke skulked to the edge of a small clearing. When he stopped to gain his bearings, he heard the voices again; a boy and a girl he concluded. Locke observed that they were young, but not childish, just by a quick study of the pitches over the rain. Teens he finally guessed upon closer inspection with the male's voice. They still come out as mumbles over the rain, but Locke was soon going to change that. He carefully took more steps, crossing the clearing with his body slumped low to the ground.

"What could possibly be worse?" came the male's voice, exaggerated and slightly tempered. Locke heard it as he rounded a large oak tree. Being mindful of the leaf littered ground that had softened from the rain, he stood by the tree in a low posture, smiling as he traced the figures of two echidnas; a young girl who looked to be about fifteen, almost sixteen, and a male that looked to be in the same age range. They stood under a large pine tree that was offering some shelter from the elements.

She looked like a drenched rat; her fur and hair were soaked to the point that she would have to brush for an hour to straighten at least her hair out. Her eyes were covered by the ends of her wet hair. Her soaked dread-locks dripping from the tips along with her cute tail. But her smooth face brought a smile and a chuckle from Locke. She was asking for forgiveness in her eyes, but her expression looked as if she was going to cry and throw a fit all in the same span of time. She wore a heavy black jacket that Locke could see was a half size too big for her, draped around her with her hands pulling the ends together from the inside. Her legs were covered by dilapidated rags that had once faintly resembled a purple dress. Her hand-made shoes only fairing a little better.

The boy was looking down from the two inches that separated their height from one another, his face crossed, trying to put forth common sense over naivety:

"I'm cold, I'm wet, and I'm hungry... what could POSSIBLY be worse than this, Emi-La!?"

She widened her blue eyes and looked beside the boy, her face trying to make light of the situation. "Our stuffs wet!" she quickly pointed out as she gazed past the crossed echidna at a pile of gear. "Besides, we've got food, so it's not a total loss."

The boy groaned. "You're impossible! Has anybody ever told you that before!?"

"Well..." she festered, searching his eyes for a counter, "your self-centered who-ever-you-are!" she sniveled. "In fact, what are you doing way out here anyways without the tribe?"

"I've told you; I'm not with the tribe. I live around here." He shook his head with a stiff face then. "Well --two hundred miles from here, at this point.!"

"But you're an echidna! You're not supposed to be out here."

"_Aleutian?"_ Locke asked himself, stunned. He saw that the boy echidna didn't have any scars on his face, nor did he have a stubbed lock. Locke tried to look for the white crest of Aleutian's birthmark as he stood beside the tree, but his chest was covered by a black soaked shirt.

"Hey, last time I checked, you've got the dreads too, _babe_! And guess what else isn't going to belong here real soon?"

"What!" she quickly jumped.

"Two _sick_ echidnas under a tree!" Aleutian exaggeratedly pointed out to the soaked girl.

Emi-La crossed her arms under the jacket and gave Aleutian a deep stare. "Your impossible!" she seethed.

Locke watched his son return the stare to Emi-La. For a moment, he thought Aleutian was going to continue the fight, but the boy held his silence over the rain. The sun had started to disappear over the grey horizon of dispar, but even so, Locke saw the faces on the two slowly change.

Emi-La was fighting to keep her stern look, but Locke saw her eyes slowly widening. It was a sign, and he wondered if Aleutian caught it.

"_She's in love with him,"_ Locke warmly observed after a moment. The look would have been easily missed by others, but Locke could see it plain as day. The slight shift in her eyes and brows was a way for her to say she was sorry.

"_She's in love with him!"_

Locke closely watch Aleutianed now, wondering still if he noticed Emi-La's sign. The young Guardian –which Locke wondered if Emi-La knew that Aleutian was one– stood there with his palms placed on his hips, still holding his gaze at the flustered girl.

But then his stare began to break away, his face twitching. It started slowly with the corner of his mouth. His lips began to slowly rise up that soon became a smile over time with Aleutian's brows becoming relaxed from their narrowed strain. He started to chuckle as an audible pant, but it soon became more every breath of air. Locke listened with a broad gapping smile as his son was soon overwhelmed by a full laugh that seemed to last for minutes. Emi-La's mouth, he noticed, dropped into a gapping frown from Aleutian's outburst, but it soon became a smile to Locke's amusement.

She slugged Aleutian in his right arm, playfully. "What's so funny?" she asked with a mirth gaze.

"You!" he chuckled out.

"Me!?" she decried, slugging him again. Aleutian just nodded his head over his laughter as he shouldered his blocks from her love taps.

Locke kept his position by the tree, being careful not to move around as he struggled not to loose it all together. Then he watched Emi-La take Aleutian's left hand and held it in her right, gently rubbing her thumb on top of his gloveless hand. It silenced Aleutian dead. Locke kept his eyes intently on Emi-La, seeing that she was fighting with herself to say something to his son. He had a warm feeling at what it was, and he was urging her to say it. He knew it would come, but the waiting and the passion he had for the moment was beckoning him to tell her to say it. He caught himself from stepping forward.

She glided closer to Aleutian, almost touching her chest with his as she let the jacket fall to the wet ground, exposing the rags of a firm dress that she had for clothes. Locke could see his son become ridged as she stood a little on her tip toes.

"_It's okay son, it happens to all of us."_

Locke waited for the words to filter out from her lips that were perched by Aleutian's ear. He waited for what seemed like an eternity, biting his lip as if he were a nervous wreck. But what she said to Aleutian shocked him; it wasn't what he thought he was going to hear.

But it still had the same effect.

"I feel safe with you, Aleutian. I can't explain it, but I do."

Aleutian looked straight into her blue eyes, his mouth gaping, stunned with not knowing what to do or say. Locke could see this clearly, but he also saw Aleutian start to fight for the words that he needed to say.

"_Go on...go on son; tell her that you love her,"_Locke said to himself from beside the tree. _"You love her...I can see it in your e..." _

He heard a twig snap far off to his left. He shuffled lightly to the side of the tree, getting a better look at what disturbed the tranquility of the moment. His senses came alive when he witnessed a dark figure moving casually towards Aleutian and Emi-La. There was something about him that made Locke start to move from the safety of the tree, gauging an intersect point to cut the dark figure off from his son and Emi-La. Four quick steps later made Locke start to run, his fist balling and his face showing resolve as he drew closer to the figure. The thing wore a hat, a big one Locke saw, and a heavy coat that trailed behind him in the rain. Three more hard strides brought the image of a long scar on the snout and two smaller ones behind his right eye.

And then he saw the gun that was held in the right hand of what Locke was sure of to be a monster. He bolted now, his heart pounding as fear gripped his throat after getting a closer look.

Locke glanced off from his target, seeing that Aleutian and Emi-La were still holding each other, not realizing the danger that was moving towards them with eerie calmness. _"Look up! Aleutian, look-up!"_ he yelled out in his head. Locke had totally forgotten where he was and what his real physical self was doing on the other side of the dreamworld. He had kicked himself into high gear to protect his son, and all thoughts were on getting to that...

"_...Aleutian!"_ he realized in utter horror of who the monster really was under the hat. He had gotten so used to seeing Aleutian without the scars –and what Locke could see as being himself– that he had forgotten about the Aleutian that his hand was placed over in reality. The look the boy had under the shadow of the hat was filled with contempt and pain. Locke wanted to question why, but a trembling fear enveloped his senses that shot the thought down while it was being born. It almost made him stop completely. Shaking the terror away, except for the thought of not making it, he pushed harder.

Then his heart sank suddenly; the pistol was starting to elevate--

"ALEUTIAN!"

Locke swore it was him crying out the warning, but it was Emi-La; screaming to his son when she finally saw the terror that was stalking them. Locke saw Aleutian push her aside in a quick motion, but his face was lit up in horror. He had frozen.

"_Aleutian, do something...ALEUTIAN!" _Locke yelled out in his head. He was counting on his son to hear him subconsciously through his dream, but it wasn't working. Aleutian just stood there, overwhelmed with terror, keeping Emi-La behind him.

Locke wasn't more than ten feet away when the long barreled pistol was squarely leveled at Aleutian's head.

"_WAKE UP, ALEUTIAN! You don't have to see this..."_

"WAKE UP, SON!" Locke finally shouted out in the dream.

But nothing happened; the ground didn't fade, he didn't fade, and worst of all, the monster of Aleutian was still there...and he just placed his finger on the trigger.

Locke reached out with his right arm, hurling his opened hand towards the black pistol. It seemed that time stood still for him, watching his hand slowly came down on top of the slide, only that he wished he could speed himself up. Then, he felt the cold, wet steel through his gloves when he finally made contact. But he wasn't breathing any easier just yet. In the corner of his left eye, he could see the tendons in Aleutian's fur hand starting to flex his index finger, squeezing the trigger back. With fear instilled in Locke's mind from the image, he felt a terrible shiver come down his body as he pushed the slide back on the weapon...

It worked; the pistol didn't fire! With the understanding of the mechanics of the pistol coming quickly into his stressed mind in a flash, Locke pushed the dimple on the slide catch into the frame of the pistol with his thumb. When the release bar had protruded out just enough on the other side, he hooked his finger under it and pulled it free from the pistol. With the catch totally out of the weapon and somewhere on the leaf littered ground, Locke pulled the slide off cleanly from the weapon; the bullet dropping away from the chamber in the process.

He still kept the slide clutched in his fist as he extended his right arm back behind him. He watched as the Aleutian in the dark coat in front of him turned the disassembled pistol frame towards him, squeezing the trigger to the empty framed pistol. Locke faced his resolve at that instant as he swung his arm around, contacting the back of metal slide on the right side of the echidna's head. The bone crushing sound of his skull signified triumph, while his body crashing to the ground brought justice.

The beast was dead.

Locke starred down for a long moment at the thing that he just defeated. With a heavy sigh coming from his lungs, he threw the remaining piece of the gun at the feet of the slain monster that _was_ his son...so he hoped. He realize the rush he took in when he hit the boy. It felt good in an odd sort of way, but he was certain the Aleutian he'd sent to the ground –and hopefully killed– was not his son. With that thought, he turned around to his true son. He could see Emi-La was still behind Aleutian, holding onto his back as she tried to conceal herself. She soon stepped out from behind him, a relieved and greeting smile being lifted across her face towards Locke.

"_So I finally get to meet you,"_ Locke joyfully said to himself.

"You're all safe now. It's all over," came Locke, nodding his head in assurance.

He watched Aleutian, waiting for his reaction from what had transpired. But something was dreadfully wrong; he didn't flinch his deadpan face for what seemed like an eternity. Locke felt the bitter tension replace the dry, humid air as he locked his eyes with his son's.

And then, Aleutian's face went cold: his head lowering ever so slightly down with his blue eyes turning to crimson, burning a murderous path that Locke knew wasn't safe for either of them.

Aleutian pushed his right shoulder forward that crudely released Emi-La's gentle grip. With it, he took a long determined stride, then another. Seeing this, Locke slowly put himself into a passive defensive mode, placing his right foot just a little bit behind his left, and rasing his opened hands just above his waist.

"Son, it's all right. It's over with," Locke pleaded calmly, "you can be yourself again..."

Locke felt pressure on his left boot when Aleutian stepped nose to nose with him. He tried to step back, but his left foot wouldn't move. In that same instant, his son struck both his arms out and pushed his father to the ground.

"ALEUTIAN, NO!" Emi-La screamed with panic.

Locke thought he was going to land on top of the Aleutian that he just slain, but instead, his back impacted the soft, empty wet ground. He glanced over his shoulder in a instant and to his horror, the dark figure was gone, replaced by the fallen leaves where a body should have laid. Snapping his eyes back to the front, his sight was enveloped with Aleutian, his face cringing in anger. The boy threw himself on top of his father, thrusting his right arm at Locke's throat.

Feeling the choking sensation sent Locke into his fight mode in a heartbeat. He grabbed at Aleutian's hand with his right and extended his left hand that impacted the forehead of his enraged son.

Emi-La's crying, screaming voice filtered over through the grunts of the struggling Guardians. "Aleutian, stop this...PLEASE!"

He looked passed his son at that instant. Emi-La was overwhelmed with tears as she struggled to pick herself up to cross the long void that separated them. "ALEUTIAN!" she screamed out again over her thrusting cries, begging him to stop.

Locke snapped his eyes back to Aleutian with a cold stare. "Listen to her, son! Don't go back on your love to her. This is not you...!"

He grunted when he felt the pain of Aleutian's knee press further against his groan. He tried to fight it, but his son increased his grip around his throat, causing him to look for other avenues to win the fight. As he added more pressure to Aleutian's forehead, he saw Emi-La running over to them now, her face painted with sorrow and sadness.

But suddenly the scenery started to change around them; it was fading. Trees started to disappear as others started to reappear in blank spaces, their leaves turning green in an instant. The rain started to tapper off dramatically with some of the heavier drops never touching the ground. Even with all this, Locke still kept his eyes on Emi-La; for her's were on him. As the sky turned from grey to a dark blue, Locke relaxed his resistence to Aleutian's hands. He was mesmerized at Emi-La's face. She was trying to say something and Locke was hoping she would say it soon...she was starting to boil as the world around her started to collapse.

Emi-La looked around her disappearing body, seeing it fade from Aleutian's dream. She brought her blue eyes back up to Locke's, her face mixed with pity, sorrow, and sadness.

"I'm sorry!" she shouted over her weeps. It made Locke relax his grip around Aleutian's hand even further as he stared gapingly at Emi-La, stunned. She was shouting to him...

"I'm sorry!" she screamed out again.

Locke saw her look down at herself once more. Her legs were all but gone, and her bare mid drift was showing the signs of fading away as well. Seeing this, she brought her tearing face up once more. "Help him! Please, help him!" she cried out as a weeping plea.

Lines were starting to appear on Aleutian's face. It was his scars Locke horridly realized; being retraced by an artist with a skilled hand. Then, the tip of a lock on the left side of Aleutian's head started to disappear as his arms started to turn a dark brown from his jacket reappearing.

The last thing Locke witnessed before the dream completely collapsed was Emi-La's chest being erased from existence, bubbling as it faded from his sight. With it went her hands as she gazed horridly at them when the disappeared. Her mouth was quivering all the while her neck faded. She squeezed her eyes shut at that instant, looking up to the heavens in despair as she took in one last deep breath before she vanished from her beloved's dream.

"...ALLEEUUU_UUTTIAANNN...!"_

Emi-La's blood curtailing scream faded as a ringing sound from Locke's mind, replaced by the still morning silence and the hard grunts from him and his son locked in mortal combat. Aleutian held his left fist up in the air, ready to slam it down on his father's head.

"STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!" shouted the raving echidna at the top of his lungs, expelling tears down his emotionally charged face.

Then, at that passionate moment; he felt ashamed of himself. Letting out a frustrated shrill, he loosened his grip from his father and quickly scrambled away from him. Locke just laid there on the ground, bewildered at what he had just envisioned from the dream.

"I'm not going to!" he finally bellowed out at the back of his son. It made Aleutian snap around in a heartbeat. Locke soon found the immediate courage to gain his footing to stand ready for another fight against the monster that inhabited his son. He was fully prepared to use his ninjutsu training if he had to.

"Stay out of my head, Locke!" Aleutian hammered out through his tears. "I don't want you seeing my thoughts anymore!"

"Why?" retorted Locke, "is there something that you don't want me to see?"

"There's a lot of things that I don't want you to see!" Aleutian cried out in a fit of quivering rage.

Locke bit down in anger from Aleutian's words. "Then how am I supposed to give you sympathy, Aleutian? Huh!? If you're not going to tell me anything about your past –the good or the bad– then how am I going to help you, and bring sympathy for what you have done. You're giving me no choice but to look inside you."

"_Locke! What's going on mate?"_ came Archimedes' voice in Locke's head.

"_Shut-up, Archy!"_ spout back Locke in an instant, giving no care where the Fire Ant was.

He watched Aleutian bring his gaze down to the ground, his eyes glistening from his tears. "I did some things, father," he started out, his voice shaky, "I did some things that I am not proud of, and I wish I could go back and undo them... but I can't."

Locke relaxed his stance when he saw Aleutian's aching heart overcome him.

"Why did you do them?" he asked with a soft but stern voice.

Aleutian placed his right gloved hand on his forehead, wiping his trembling face with it after he tried to sooth his aching head. "Revenge and retribution," he finally wept out.

Locke began to realize what this was all coming to. He remembered what he heard Aleutian say in his forethought from the day before, and it made him ask his next question that he was deathly afraid of what the answer was; more so for Emi-La's sake.

"What three?" It came out like glass shattering in the quietest of libraries.

Aleutian stiffened his face as he swallowed hard. "I..." He stopped himself with the cold thoughts of what he was about to tell. He shook his head at the ground and began to turn around.

Locke wouldn't let it happen; "WHAT THREE!?" he demanded, his posture going stern.

Aleutian stopped halfway as he winced from his father's voice for the first time. He knew he wasn't going to runaway from this. He could try not to think about it now, but the wounds were being reopened. Aleutian knew it was only a matter of time before strong flashbacks would come back from those wounds and Locke would witness them.

"Draven...Mace...Thompson.," Aleutian seethed out slowly after a moments thought.

"_He didn't!"_ screamed out Archimedes' voice in Locke's afterthoughts.

"_I think we just established that, old friend."_

"Was that what you meant by cleaning the blood from the grooves of your pistol?" Locke asked. Aleutian just coldly nodded his face, his stance stiffened all the while. "So what did they do to deserve _our _bloodline's resolve?"

Aleutian's gaze went acute with his reply. "They helped set a trap for me and my friends. With it, they killed them along with my Emi-La."

"Who did they help?"

"Robotnick," answered Aleutian, his face eaten with anger. "They betrayed me, my friends, and themselves over money and hollow promises. For it, they deserved to be departed."

"Then why do you feel guilty about it, Aleutian?" Locke waited as he watched his son's expression. He could see that he did know the answer, but he wasn't able to admit it to himself. "Do you even know the answer?" Aleutian shook his head, more out of protest than knowing.

Locke took the chance with that sign. "Because you knew what you were doing was throwing everything away that she worked so hard for. She wanted you to keep your name and blood-right and so she did the dirty work...not you.

And you threw it away!" Locke seethed out in the end.

Aleutian just stood there with his rage mixed with his tears, saying nothing. He knew it all along, he painfully reflected. It was why he had tears mixed with his blood from the opened scar on his snout. His wounds had never fully healed when he killed Mace the Mongoose, and when he faced his anger towards himself at what he had done –and to whom he went back on– he tore open his gaping slash that released his anger in blood. When the tears came, that was when he realized what he had done to his equal...and the thought hurt him even more than the scars.

But it wasn't the total answer as to why Aleutian did it; Locke knew this. Aleutian had cherished what Emi-La had done to keep his honor and name free from the barbarity of what they were asked to do. An equal just wouldn't go back on something like that without a damn good reason.

"_I should've let Lopper handle it...like he asked,"_ Aleutian reflected, feeling guilty that he didn't take his teacher's request.

"Then why didn't you?" Locke asked after picking out Aleutian's thought. "Or was it something else that made you lose your way; to go back on her honor?"

Archy stood atop a branch, watching the emotional stand-off between a father and his son. What Locke had asked made him almost turn away. _"Don't, Locke. He can't take this..."_

"_...Good. He needs to break,"_ Locke countered.

"_But not like this. It will hurt him and it could alienate him from all of us."_

"_It's __**been**__ hurting him, Archimedes. Look at him. He's been carrying the burden of what he never became since the day it was robbed from him. He needs to let go."_

Locke threw Archimedes plea of caution to the wind as he took in another hard breath. "What did they _really _take from you, son?" He paused to let it sink in, stepping forward to await the reaction that he knew was coming. "What did they rob from you that you wanted _so_ bad from that day?" He stopped when he was a mere six inches from his sobbing boy. "What did they take from _my_ son that would have been so precious to him...more so than his Emi-La?"

It all flashed in Aleutian's dreary mind. Emee would be there by his side looking over his shoulder, holding her Guardian as she watched_ their _Guardian sleep in his arms. With that image fresh in his mind, Aleutian then knew why he practically committed cold-blooded murder. They seized his chance of becoming a father with the one he truly loved.

They took away his family as it lay in the womb.

Aleutian turned his head away for an instant, trying to cast his precious thoughts away, never succeeding. When his glistening gaze fell back on his father, Locke was ready for what he knew was going to be the hardest thing Aleutian was about to say. At least he thought he was ready.

"You would've been a Grandfather, dad," Aleutian whimpered out, clinching his fist as he was overcome by his trembling emotions. It still felt like a sledge hammer had pounded home to Locke's heart. "They took it all from me, dad, and I never had a chance to embrace it..." Aleutian's voice trailed off as he realized what he did to his real family. "I wanted to be a father like...like I took from you."

It all became too much for him. He almost buckled under his own emotional weight if it weren't for Locke snatching him before he fell to the ground. And there he stood, holding his son tightly in his arms as he fought off his tears, fearing that he might be robbed of his son.

* * *

"_What happened, Locke?"_ asked Archimedes. He was sitting on Locke's shoulder as the two watched Aleutian eat by himself in the clearing, mesmerized by the sweet morning light that grew brighter with each passing minute. 

Locke mused at the question but came up with a different answer. _"We're not alone in this, Archy."_

"_What do you mean, mate?"_

"_Emi-La...she's been calling to him. And this _morning_ she called to me; I know it!"_

Achy wanted to turn his head, but he disciplined himself not too, still watching Aleutian's body language. _"What!?"_

"_Her voice awoke me this morning, and she was calling for Aleutian. Archy, her voice is sweeter than wine,"_ Locke gasped in his head.

"_I know! She's the reason why he stayed away from us, but she also wanted him to come back to us."_

"_She still does,"_ Locke countered, _"She apologized for him right to me, only pleading that I help him. She misses her lover, Archy; the one she was torn away from. And I think she wants him back more than us."_

"_So what's the problem. If she can touch him in his dreams, why haven't we seen results?"_

Locke mused at Archy's point for a moment. _"Because of that monster that's in him, and I've seen it; here in this world and his. I even fought the thing, but I'm afraid I only wounded it."_

"_And so you've enraged it more, bringing it here to us!" _Archy shot back.

Locke shook his head slightly. _"No, I broke it here. At least I hope I did."_

Archimedes' thoughts went back to when he first met Emi-La. Standing by Aleutian, her beauty casting a glow around him as he listened to Archimedes' message from his father. He's thoughts of her still rang true at that instant of reflection. _"She's an angel, Locke. She touched his soul and she is still there for him."_

"_I know, old friend. And we need to help her succeed. We owe it to her as she owes it to us."_

* * *

Sally found it easier to fight Robotnick than to battle herself back to sleep. She awoke with a troubled mind that she tried to chase away with a walk. Instead, it only furthered her dilemma: a new cipher to crack, rumors and intelligence reports of the Eggfleet amassing in size, figuring a way to work through the jamming frequencies thanks to Robotnick, and most of all, a certain blue hedgehog was knocking on her heart again. Sonic didn't know it but she felt it. This time though, she was going to keep it a secret from him. It was all still too soon. 

Her walk somehow took her to the Command Center. There, she found Rotor and Uncle Chuck slumped over the long console; sleeping. She shook her head at the sight, knowing they had worked all through the night until their exhaustion took over. Sally was about to wake them and send them off to their huts down in the city, but with a quick glance at the clock, she realized that is would only hamper their sleep cycle instead of making it better.

She sighed at the sight before she moved over to the panel, studying printouts and readouts. They didn't even put a dent in the code. She sighed again, knowing how hard they must have worked but bearing no fruit from their labors.

"Nicole," she said drearly, "you still on?"

"Yes, Sally. I'm still working on this, but it isn't going like it should."

Sally felt her eyes start to grow heavy again, but she fought to keep them open. "What's so different about it?"

"There's too much information in the transmission. The original message is shorter than what we have, and finding the right letters and words is near to impossible, even for me."

"But it means that you all have cracked the code itself?" Sally asked, rubbing her drowsy head.

"Not all of it. We managed to break the words down and spell others out, but again, it's the organization of the message that is banal. I'm trying something different with it though. Instead of two dimensional, I'm looking at it in three."

"Say what?"

"I'm breaking it down into shapes, Sally, plus working the trigonometry and calculus in with it. So far I am looking at this in an octagon sphere. Inside and out." Nicole fell silent for a bit, gauging Sally's bewildered reaction with one of her cameras that hovered over the screen. "You don't want to see this. It will make you feel unwell just by the sight of it."

"I think I'm feeling that way just by thinking about it, Nicole," Sally muttered.

If her program would have allowed it, Nicole would have laughed at Sally's quipped remark, but she was a computer after all. However, Nicole did read an ancient book about a computer named _Mike _who did.

"Any progress with it so far?" asked Sally.

"I think I have one word figured out, Princess: _Chameleons_."

"Chameleons?" It lifted a little fog from her senses. "You sure?"

Nicole paused, running her calculations faster than most normal beings could. "I'm sure of it Sally. There are no other Mobian species in the message that we have deciphered."

Nicole then changed the subject. "If I may say so, Sally, you need to go on stand-by and recharge."

Sally yawned, musing over the advice of Nicole; it was her way of saying that someone needed to inspect their eyelids for light leaks. "I do, but I don't think I could make it back to the castle."

"Tails and Rotor usually sleep on the briefing tables after a long nights work. You should try it, though I don't condone the lack of back support."

Sally shifted her heavy eyes to the tables. Sleep loomed over her wary mind that made the tables more inviting. Figuring her vest would do for covers, she trudged her way over to the her new bed for the night. When she laid down on the cold tabletop, her auburn hair dangled across her back and down towards the floor, never touching it. She starred hard at Uncle Chuck all the while her mind began to fade into dreams, reminding her of his nephew. With Nicole's processing sounds being a lullaby to Sally, she closed her eyes, only saying her last thought to herself as she fell back to sleep:

"_I miss you Sonic..."_

* * *

Since I've picked up the comics again, I was said to see Sally and Sonic broken up. But when Fionia left, it gave me an avenue to work with for their love. Man so many love stories so little chapters...except the next. Just hope I can edit out and post it soon._  
_


	10. The Sentry

* * *

Welcome again...boy this is getting redundent.

(As I smile with envy) Now we go to my forte...combat. If any of you all have read the comics, you should know about an aqua blue hedgehog name Rob-O. This is where he makes his appereance. Enjoy...and have fun the Diplomacy!

Disclamer: I observe the rights of the creaters of the original characters and stand to gain no profit.

Please Review.**  
**

* * *

**The Sentry**

by: Mauser

* * *

The air gently wafted along the grassy plain that stretched eastward to the edge of Deer Wood Forest. Wesson held his head just high enough to see over the sandy cliff of the beach, listening and watching intently for anything that didn't belong in the eerily calm evening. Time was growing short and he was getting impatient. Once more he looked left then right, doing it smartly as not to attract attention to him and the rest of the group that hovered just below him. Glancing up, he used his ocular enhancement to search the sky. No threats, but not a sign of Seminole either.

With a blunt sigh, he skulked below the edge of the cliff and turned to Ell-Tee, who was just about as anxious to break for the cover of the forest as everyone else. "Now what?" he hissed under his raspy voice.

Ell-Tee turned behind him, shooting his vision past Yanar, who was helping Stenson hold a large rifle in place to keep it from falling to the sandy beach below them. "Field Marshal, we need to move now!"

"I have to agree with your Lieutenant, Mr. Stenson," Yanar professed. "If we stay here any longer and get spotted, Albion will be in danger for sure."

"Coming from a guy who told us to have faith?" snorted Vickers, kneeling amongst the five Albion Centurions along the steep and narrow path with his weapon clutched in his hands.

"That was just to get you across the water!" Yanar harshly whispered back.

What Yanar wanted as a lesson in faith turned into a joke amongst the Legionnaires and now the Albion Centurions who were tagging along. _"It takes a leap of faith,"_ he remembered saying to them with confidence. All Stenson did was shake his head at him and boldly state: _"Lead the way preacher man." _And now he was crouched down in the sand, finding his strength was just enough to help hold Stenson's _Diplomat_.

Yanar had thought for a minuscule second that the Field Marshal was going to bring someone or something to arbitrate with Eggman's machines. But that didn't make sense to him and Gala-Na, especially with the gossip of the Legionnaires ringing true when they stepped off the boat. When Ell-Tee and Stenson popped the lid off from a large carbon-polymer case, Yanar realized that it was the "something" that was going to be doing the arbitrating.

One way and down range!

Yanar studied the thing as it lay in its case as if it were a vampire in a coffin; just in pieces. He knew the weapon had to be large just by seeing the large crate it was stored in, but as Stenson and Ell-Tee assembled it, a demonized giant was born. Aside from the name being a cruel joke, the rifle had a menacing aura around the black parkerized steel. The muzzle brake looked something to the effect of a posthole digger, and the barrel was as tall as Yanar, enclosed in unobtanium polymers that dissipated the high degree of heat that Stenson swore ranged in the Kelvins at times. In fact, the whole rifle was unobtanium in Stenson's pristine eyes, due to the materials and skills needed to fabricate one. The _Diplomat_ happened to be a bull-pup sniper rifle that took on light-armored vehicles as if they were empty aluminum cans. Unfortunately for the Eggbots and a few unlucky Dingos, the term "light-armored vehicle" was used very liberally with the Dark Legion.

When Stenson saw the rifle being put through the trial runs, he had to have one. And what the Field Marshal wants, the Field Marshal gets.

But the prime characteristics of the rifle lay not in its looks but its teeth. Double stacked in an eight inch tall titanium magazine, the shooter had only two types of ammunition he could use: armored piercing and a new cartridge affectionately named the _Slammer_. Unlike the latter, the _Slammer_ was the epitome of projectile hunks of lead. As Yanar observed Vickers loading the ten rounds into a mag, he caught sight of the large hollow point round that was the last to be loaded. It was a spectacle to behold even when it wasn't launched from its titanum casing. Platinum jacketed and with the hint that it would be embalmed with hot plasma upon flight, Yanar could only but trembled at the sight of it. What he didn't know was that the round used more kinetic energy as a lifter and tumbler than to just piece through objects. A hoverbot that was used as a test subject looked as if Chaos had kicked the thing in the side and leaving an impression that covered two-thirds of the transport that sank half way into the compartment. Sometimes the round went through the hull, but never exited to the other side.

"I thought you were talking about diplomacy, when you spoke of _this_?" he asked Ell-Tee after the Legionnaire had finished putting the rifle together.

"We were...just three-hundred and ninety-seven grains of it."

Yanar still remembered rolling his eyes at Ell-Tee's comment. He almost wanted to again, but prescient of the current task of not getting killed made him stop.

"Thirty seconds!" Stenson quickly whispered to the hunched group.

Vickers turned to the squad behind him and motioned them to get ready. They were visibly nervous, almost wondering why they had even volunteered for the little night stroll to the other side. But they were still willing to go along. Clutching their rifles, the lead echidna nodded at Vickers, awaiting the signal to climb the rest of the way up the bluff. Craig, as the name patch said over his right breast pocket, was the only name Vickers cared about in the bunch. After all, it was Craig who saved him from wearing old ladies clothes, suppling the Dark Legionnaire with a set of the dark blue, battle dress uniform. The only problem with it was that the trouser over his robotic leg was a tad too small, almost looking as if it would rip at the seams.

"So what's the game plan again if we get pinged?" asked Craig from behind Vickers. He was grinding his teeth for action as the other three guys, plus one girl, in his assembled team. Problem was, they'd never experienced combat outside of training. And that was what made Craig more nervous.

"Fire and maneuver. We'll be working off Ell-Tee's lead with precision support from the Field Marshal. Ell will lay down the juice as we flank the living daylights out of the enemy. The bots are pretty stupid when it comes to reaction in an ambush, but after the party is in full swing, we better have our jobs done by then or we'll be working a lot harder than we should." Vickers looked on at Craig as if he was born yesterday. "Please tell me you train offensively?"

Craig quickly shook his head. "A good defense is a great offense. That's been our philosophy."

"Three words, Craig;" Vickers held up three fingers and one by one, closed them down into a fist: "War-of-attrition. You passivist bunch wouldn't stand a chance against us, much less the fat Overlander, with your idea."

Craig felt his throat tighten as he tried to swallow. _"Who are these guys?"_

"Alright, Wesson," whispered Stenson, "you first! Signal us when you secure the perimeter."

Wesson slung his pulse carbine around to his left hand and balanced the stout forearm with his robotic right. He was about to bolt across the plain into the forest when he did one more scan of the tree line and the sky with his ocular right eye. Switching from night vision to infrared, he found the tree line was clear of all threats. But the sky produced something else. Closing is natural left eye and zooming in with his right, he smiled at the red and yellow image. It was Seminole.

"Contact; friendly," Wesson curtly whispered.

"I hope that's your feathered friend!" said Ell-Tee. Wesson nodded, his eyes still fixed to the trees.

It wasn't long before Seminole made his diving approach, finding his perch on the young sergeant's gloved arm. "About ten clicks to the northeast, Master, the bots have a marshaling area. It's in a clearing, but there are civilians amongst them. They're being forced to load materials onboard about five transports."

Ell-Tee shifted his heavy auto-cannon around on his shoulder as he nodded to Seminole. "Strength?"

"Platoon size. About ten on the civilian side."

Ell-Tee turned his head to Stenson. "Field Marshal?"

"I heard," Stenson curtly replied, "Wesson, take point; get across the field and wait for us. Everybody else, line formation; ten meter gaps to the man in front of you." Stenson watched the pink echidna girl give out a gruff protest to the one-sighted gender order.

Wesson released Seminole and ordered him to get back to Albion after the bird gave him a precise bearing of the bots' location. Darkness was overpowering the last gasp of sun light and he didn't want to be occupied with his bird in harm's way while scouting the terrain. With a breath for courage and another for determination, Wesson sprang from his nook and sprinted across the field, putting his head on a swivel as he bolted across toward the tree line. He felt a wave of tension lift off him when he reached it, practically sliding to a stop in the kneeling position, his carbine up at the ready for any possible ambush. Seeing nothing in his field of view, he took out a red lens, pen light, and flickered back to the awaiting team.

"Clear, Field Marshal!" relayed Ell-Tee, his auto-cannon firmly planted on the ground in front of him, steadied by a bi-pod under the heavy, square metal frame as he scoured the tree line with the cone-shaped muzzle.

"Roger that! Stand-to everyone!" hastily ordered Stenson. Turning back to the assembling squad below him, he pointed to the girl. "You go first. Me and the ambassador will be right behind you."

He grinned crookedly towards Yanar. "How's that ammo?"

"Not light, Mr. Stenson!" came the sharp reply.

"This thing isn't a walk in the park, either. And that's Field Marshal Stenson, Mr. Yanar. You are under my command now."

Yanar let out a low grumble as he let the girl by him. He could tell she was extremely apprehensive for what she about to do; her tail sagged low enough to trace a path in the sand.

Ell-Tee reached out and took her arm when she got up to him. "Don't run flat out, Ms. Le. Just keep a double-time pace to Wesson unless we are engaged or something. Don't return fire, don't stop. Just run like hell if something happens, okay. I've got your back," he instructed, seeing the name on her battle blouse was Nata-Le.

She brought her slender plasma rifle up to her chest, clutching the pistol grip even tighter. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she took off across the field, becoming annoyed right off with the restrictive gear strapped across her back and waist. She was scared beyond measure, wondering if she was going to see the age of nineteen before the night was over. Breaking training half way across the field, she looked over her shoulder to see Stenson not far behind her, carrying the _Diplomat _over his shoulder and making his best efforts to run with it. Behind him, Yanar was realizing he needed to do more weight training as the four magazines he toted in a rucksack almost sent him on his back.

Nata-Le reached Wesson, who still had his weapon pointed towards the heavy undergrowth beyond him. "Anything?" she asked, finding herself in the kneeling position beside him to his left.

"No, ma'am, but keep your eyes peeled and your _heater_ covering the left flank."

She did as she was told but she still kept her eye on the left handed Legionnaire. She didn't know what was more frightening; him or the bots that they were searching to terminate. After a moments thought about it, she concluded that she was glad that Wesson was on their side. There was something about his eery silence as he attuned all his senses to the woods that made her believe that and still be afraid of him in the same breath of air.

* * *

Two hours and seven kilometers later, Wesson wasn't too happy with his surroundings. _"No thanks to Yanar."_ he scorned in the air. The Ambassador did get them through most of the foliage and broken trails, but where they were now had changed over the years, and Yanar was starting to question his memory and self-confidence. Which meant Wesson was back on point. Twitching his head back, he flickered his infrared mode on. Seeing the body heat signatures of the rest of his group about two hundred yards off, he pushed on further through the forest.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop the leaves from crunching under his heavy boots. Every sifting step he took sent a shudder up his spine and over his dreads, fearing that the dead would hear him coming. Then came the rocks and the fallen trees, putting his mind a little at ease as he climbed over them. He didn't mind them as much as the dead leaves. They could be used as cover if he needed it, and if he had to freeze, he could stand there without making a sound. But with another crunch, back came his anxiety.

Wesson froze in an instant when he picked up something that didn't belong in the dark: light, and lots of it. Switching back to his normal sight, he steadily crab-walked his way down the small incline, working in the shadows of the moon and the large rounded trees. Concealing himself behind one, he skulked around the side of it, his pulse carbine ready to pulverize anything that happened to be too close for comfort. And if that happened, he was the fastest thing the Legion had to offer that wasn't totally a machine. He didn't move like a certain blue hedgehog, but he could clear the two hundred yard gap between him and his entourage in two shakes.

He couldn't believe his tactical senses: the bots had flood lamps up and pointing towards their transports. If he wanted to, he could've come out from his concealment spot by the tree, do a series of jumping jacks, and the bots still wouldn't have seen him unless they switched to their night vision. Wesson was totally hidden in the abyss of the dark thanks to the back lighting that Eggman's minions had put up. And what was even better about it: the flood lights exposed the five transports in living color.

"_They must be handing out the butt whopping around here. They've grown complacent; even for Bots!"_

Wesson took two quick scans of his surroundings before he began to advance a little further towards the target rich environment. Shouldering his carbine and bringing out his pistol from his utility belt, he leopard crawled across the ground, using the undergrowth to his best advantage. Moving three inches every ten seconds, he painstakingly kept himself low and quiet, extending his tail straight out from his body the whole time. Before he would place his hand on the ground, he'd gently swipe away the leaves in front of him, exposing the dirt that hadn't borne grass for many moons. He smiled inward when the only sound he heard was the mechanics operating in his robotic arm.

He found a large tree to his right and rolled down in a burrow that was deep enough just to hide his entire prone body. Lifting his head up, he peered over the large exposed root of the tree, and flexed his enhanced ocular to zoom in, activating the range finder --that was an added bonus to losing his eye-- to gauge the distance. Looking down the shallow incline that didn't have much in the way of obstacles or cover, he saw movement but it wasn't friendly by any means. Seeing the readout from him to the bots was just over five hundred meters, he reached for his radio that was hidden in a sleeve beside the poaches that held his extra battery cells, switched it on, and gave two taps on the talk button. He hoped to the Ancient Walkers that Stenson or Ell-Tee had theirs switched on just to hear the two static blips signal that danger was present.

He waited. No reply, but he did notice that his quick transmission didn't arouse the bots. He watched one move back and forth, doing menial tasks as Wesson was sure they were forcing their prisoners to do the real work. Sure they didn't feel the strain of working since they were machines, but it was all psychological warfare against their captives; _"Break em' so they don't have the strength to revolt or escape." _

_Piifft...piffft!_

It was what he wanted to hear. They had their ears on and they were now awaiting for him to give the all clear. Switching to infrared, he took in more of a threat assessment, gathering as much information as he could before he signaled the rest of his team to advance. To his far right, he could see the outlines of Mobians, huddled in a group beside the back of a transport with about four bots standing guard around them. He only counted six, but they were bunched up enough that he was sure there were more. Surveying to the left, he could see the energy sources of the bots as they lumbered around the huddled transports. Wesson knew it wouldn't be long before they departed.

Holstering his pistol and grabbing his pen light, he flashed it towards the infrared signature of his team, holding it down for a half minute so they could get a bearing on him. Satisfied when he saw them start to move, he turned his attention back to the target rich environment. He assessed the transports further, figuring that they were going to be an easy shell to crack. They were Eggman's lower model Cyberdyne ships: rectangular in appearance with short stubby, wings for stabilization, and sporting nothing in the way of armament. They were just to move supplies and the spoils-of-war from point A to point B. They weren't in any formation to speak of, closely huddled together like the prisoners they were about to receive. Wesson could see the powerplants to their engines were running. It wasn't hard to miss the white glow from the inside of their thin hulls.

"Wow, what luck!" bolstered Ell-Tee in a whisper as he came up beside Wesson. "What's the distance?"

"About five hundred yards. Our civilians are on the right flank and a good majority of the bots are center and left, possible more in the ships."

Stenson came up beside them now, lying as low as he could while holding his rifle over his shoulder. "Yanar and I will deploy here. Ell-Tee, take three and position yourself on the left flank." Stenson looked behind him at the gathering Albion Centurions, circling in a close defensive stack. "Wesson, where are those civilians?"

"Right flank, sir. Looks like they are the last to get loaded."

"Okay, Mr. Craig. Grab two of your best shooters and go with Wesson. Figure you can handle that position better than us?"

"We'll find out, Mr. Stenson," replied Craig. He then quickly turned to his assembled team. "Nata-Le...Oscar, on me. The rest of you, listen to the Lieutenant."

Ell-Tee brought his auto-cannon around and held it stiffly to his shoulder. "Vickers and the rest of you, lets go. Noise discipline all the way."

"Roger that!" whispered Vickers, bringing his standard Legionnaire rifle up to low ready position in his shoulder.

Stenson watched as both teams fanned out. Wesson led Craig, Nata-Le and the other brown echidna, Oscar, just to the right of the clearing, shadowing themselves behind the trees as they leapfroged their way down. Ell-Tee took his team further away from the clearing, navigating to a spot where they could maximize their firepower from one central location.

Now it was time for Stenson's part in the operation. He lumbered the _Diplomat_ off his shoulder and brought it and himself down towards the ground, placing it on its bi-pod. He tightly locked his shoulder into the custom made stock that was specially fitted for him and him alone. Satisfied with his natural point of aim, he turned his head slightly to Yanar:

"I need one of those magazines, Mr. Ambassador," he whispered evenly.

Yanar happily slung off the pack and produced one of the large magazines to the Field Marshal. The titanum casings glimmered in the moonlight. Seeing the first round was a _Slammer_, Stenson slid the magazine under his arm and pushed it into the well. Upon hearing the snap of the mag locking into place, Stenson reached forward and grabbed the two and a half inch charging handle on the right side of the weapon and racked it home. Yanar turned white as the pale moon when he heard the mechanical action chamber in the first round that ended with a hard thump.

Pushing the safety down to the fire position with a flick of his thumb, Stenson steadied his right eye over the scope and took a bead on the side of a transport. If all went well, he could also destroy the one beside it with the first shot.

* * *

"What's the plan Mr. Wesson..."

The Legionnaire snapped around and pushed his right robotic arm at Craig's mouth. "You speak one more time when we are this close, and I won't hesitate to snap your neck off!" Wesson growled over his deformed voice, He waited until he saw Craig nod his eyes in affirmation. "What we are going to do is execute an ambush. The only difference is that we have to move into position before we open fire. Usually it's the other way around." He quickly looked around him and found that they were still unseen and unheard. "When we spring it...no-holds-barr. Understand me? Our key to this is silence, a good position, and _lots_ of violence. If a mobian happens to cross your path and you happen to kill em, shrug it off and keep killing the bots. We need to drop as many of those things as possible."

He released Craig and continued working his field craft, inching himself closer with his carbine shouldered, ready to scorch anything that surprised him.

Craig had to kick himself to follow Wesson; he was just as shocked as Nata-Le and Oscar from the Legionnaires raspy speech. _"Shrug it off? Who the hell are these guys?"_

Nata-Le was having the same feelings as Craig, but she still looked to Wesson for guidance. She and the rest of them had only trained to hold off hoards of enemy combatants; not go looking for them. She knew it upset the sergeant and she couldn't blame him, but she also found it as a fault in keeping their world safe. But Wesson's idea of shrugging off innocent people getting killed disturbed her. She didn't understand how someone could think that way.

Wesson lowered himself lower to the ground and motioned for the rest to do the same. They were close enough that they could make out most of the bots and the Mobians that were held captive. Wesson threw his arm up and motioned for Criag. The Centurion did his best to not make a sound as he moved closer to Wesson.

"Spread out from here, no more and no less than two meters from each other. Find anything for cover," Wesson softly whispered, gauging that they were just about twenty yards from the impending kill zone.

He watched Craig turn and motioned for the team to grab a position. _"At least they have hand signals," _he snorted to himself. Turning back to his left, he zoomed in on where Ell-Tee was supposed to be with his infrared vision. He could barely see the other team but he was satisfied that the main key to the ambush was set. Balancing his carbine to keep it at the ready, Wesson lightly grabbed his radio from his pocked and began to send the ready sig...

...Fear bolted through his body that told him to drop his radio. Out from the corner of his right eye, just before he switched it back to his normal sight, he picked up a warm body beside him. He centered his target rectal of his carbine's holographic scope on it, standing as still as he could. Beyond the bow and arrow that was ready to be released at Wesson's head, he could make out a figure under a hood, his eyes filled to the brink with rage.

* * *

"What in the name of Dimitri!" cursed Stenson under his cloak. "Get him out of the way!"

Yanar's heart sank further than where it was. "What's going on, Mr. Stenson!" he demanded in a harsh whisper. He could tell that Stenson was fidgeting under his cloak as he steadied his rifle through the whole ordeal.

Stenson could see him plain as day through his night vision scope. Even the outline of the bow and arrow. "A hedgehog just dropped down right in front of my sights..."

"...Is he wearing a hood!?" Yanar fired back.

"Yes?" Stenson didn't like where this was going.

"That's our sentry! That's Rob-O..."

"...Well, he's about to get splattered if he doesn't..."

* * *

"...Get down! Do it now!" Wesson held his ground the whole time, whispering his commands as loud as safety permitted. He waited; the hedgehog did nothing.

Nata-Le looked over her shoulder at where Wesson was supposed to be. Finding that he wasn't beside her, she frantically searched with the ambient flood lights giving her aid. They were just enough to trace the figure of the Legionnaire echidna in a stand off with something just in front of him. She became frantic. She wanted to shout out to Craig for help, but she knew if she did, they and everybody else could be dead in a heart beat. Leaning harder up against the tree Nata-Le clutched the pistol grip of her plasma rifle harder as she waited for the deadly outcome of the stand off.

Wesson's mind was racing so fast, that between his thoughts and his head becoming dizzy from the two way vision of his eyes, he was starting to have a hard time thinking straight. Suddenly time seemed to stand still as he tried to rank the threats into priorities: in front of him was a very agitated hedgehog who was about to send him packing to the afterlife, and beside him were the hoard of bots that would soon detect them if he didn't get the situation under control.

And up on the hill was Stenson...ready to splatter the hedgehog to the four winds if he didn't drop to the ground.

To Wesson's surprise, it spoke; "Put thou weapon down."

"_Oh, hell no! We are not going to do this!"_

Wesson snapped his eyes to the right when he saw movement come from the side of the transport that he was sure was Stenson's first target. Throwing his stare back to the situation that was about to spiral out of control, he cursed in the air as he tried to plead with the man in front of him.

"Get down, or I'm gonna make you!"

"Is that a threat...if so, thou won't be seeing the next few seconds!"

Wesson lowered himself to the ground, ready to pull his trigger if it came to it. Sweat rolled off his brow, and for a good reason; he could see one of the Eggbots was beginning to take some interest in them.

* * *

"Mr. Yanar; can you replace a Sentry if you had too?"

Stenson's question drove through Yanar like a knife. "WHAT!?"

Stenson felt the breeze pick-up, fluttering his cloak that was draped over him and his rifle. For a second he thought it was Yanar, but he knew the Ambassador didn't have that much hot air in him.

* * *

"_Okay, cretin. I've had enough games."_

Wesson bolted quickly to his right, counting on the hedgehog's reflexes to get the better of him. It worked. Wesson heard the fletching from the arrow whistle by his head, swearing it hadn't come more than two inches from the sound of it. Closing the short distance with a hard sprint and a diving jump, he pounced on top of the hedgehog before he could retrieve another arrow. Slamming hard to the ground, the hard thump attracted the Eggbot's attention and it quickly brought its sensors up along with its plasma launcher for an arm. Wesson was about to extend his carbine out and drop the bot, but he stopped himself cold. He instead placed his whole body weight on top of the hedgehog, feeling his quills digging into his jacket, covered metal chest. He took one last look up with his infrared vision just before he turned it off. For the split second moment he had of his sight, he realized that the hedgehog wasn't alone, seeing the body heat signatures of others in the trees.

But Wesson wasn't alone either...

"Thank-you!" With that mutter, Stenson squinted his left eye, took a breath which he let half way out...and slowly squeezed the trigger to his rifle.

He didn't necessarily hear the harsh bellow of thunder from it, but more so of the tightly wound springs in the stock. Stenson knew his shot had found its target even through he couldn't see from the white out of the flash and his scope. The slamming kick of his rifle scared him when it went off, a good indication that he didn't jerk the trigger. Yes, the transport wasn't a hard target to miss...but he couldn't say the same for the Eggbot at over hundred yards away.

He just hoped Wesson kept his head down.

* * *

A brilliant purple comet raked the humid air above them at over three thousand feet per second. Wesson could feel the immense heat on his back as he kept still the whole time, using every ounce of discipline that he could muster to not stand up and bolt for cover.

He couldn't say the same though for the aqua-blue hedgehog that he finally saw from the brief streaking light.

Rob-O had taken out his stout, little knife and was about to give Wesson a bad cut to the throat when he saw and felt the _Slammer_ go by. He snapped his head over as he tried to follow it across the field. For the time it took him to blink from the induced shock, he watched the purple ball smash into the bot that was about to fire its plasma arm at them, sending it backwards into the side of the transport behind it. The round had began to mushroom as it picked up the bot, fully spreading out to all angles when it impacted the metal side of the ship with a deafening THWACK!

Time seemed to pause for everyone and everything for the few seconds it took the transport to be lifted off the ground and slightly rolled over onto its back before crashing into the transport beside it. The engulfing fire ball from the explosion signified the start of the Battle for Deer Wood Forest.

Ell-Tee felt a rush of adrenaline surge through his body as he adjusted his hand on the trigger group and touched off his auto-cannon at the open ramp of a transport. He caught the bots napping as they tried to stand-to and rush out of the rear compartment to meet the intruders. Ell-Tee's shoulder shook with every plasma round that was energized and thrown out of the barrel. He had both eyes open the whole time, watching his shots impact everything that had meaning.

Vickers wasn't far behind Ell-Tee on the shooting. Raising his standard issue Legion rifle, he held both handgrips firm and pressed the trigger. Catching two bots with his quick burst, he searched out for more targets and fired once more, sending three more plasma rounds into an assaulting bot that was cut in half, its white hot mechanical innards scorching the ground on contact.

It didn't take long for the prone Centurions beside him to take the hints and put their weapons to good use, catching anything that happened to pop into their holographic sights and cutting it down with a squeeze of their triggers.

* * *

Nata-Le felt her rifle jump in her soft hands as she took out the closest bot to the prisoners. It dropped without so much of a shudder from its hydraulic servos. With the smell of ozone filling the air around her, she felt the charge of battle come over her as she shifted her stance around the tree and let another Eggbot have its last rights. Muzzle flashes erupted beside her as Craig and Oscar joined the fight, tearing the machines down from their stubby legs.

Four hard, loud cracks of metal colliding with metal at a fierce velocity commanded her to swing back to the sanctuary of cover behind the tree. Catching her shaking breath helped her to regain her courage. She knelt further down over her shaking body that was racked with fear and peered around the left side of the tree. Her eyes caught four large holes that had pulverized the side of the transport, leaving a line of destructions.

Nata-Le was about to swing out and engage another bot when the _Diplomat_ made her sink back behind the tree.

Stenson felt his toes digging a trench into the ground when he touched off his sixth round. He could feel the rifle getting hotter under his cloak, making him sweat more with every shot.

He smiled briefly when the armored-piercing round landed in the cockpit of the transport and killed the two bots that were inside. He could see the glimmer of the glass that was shattered to the four winds, littering the newly charred ground from stray blaster fire. From his vantage point, the skirmish looked as if a rock concert was under attack by an army of shooting stars. Bright traces of green and orange plasma fire raked the encircled bots' opened position, cutting only a few down at a time. Stenson knew it was a waste of energy cells, but the whole idea was to not let the enemy have a chance to respond in kind. Normal free-thinking beings would just wait out the first wave of forward fire, counting on the aggressors to stop and switch out batteries in their weapons. But not the bots. Stenson had seen this many times back on Angel Island: Eggman's machines would keep coming, no matter what level of ferocity the direct fire was as they attempted to blast away anything that was computed to as a target. It was a fault that Stenson used without prejudice.

Two Eggbots emerged out from behind the two burning hunks that were ships only seconds ago, and brought their weapons down on Wesson and Rob-O. Breathing in a short stint of air, Stenson let it out and adjusted his finger over the trigger...before he squeezed it.

* * *

Wesson used every ounce of free-will and strength to keep low, depending on the Field Marshal to keep his aim true the whole time.

He still winced when the seventy-one caliber round sliced through the air with a thunderous waft, exploding the first bot to what looked like an infinity of pieces. The driod behind it didn't fair too well either, taking what was left of the armored piercing round just as hard as its counter-part.

The Legionnaire counted on his fingers in his mind, guessing Stenson had about...

Three more rounds cruised overhead again and found their marks in another transport's cockpit to his left. The enemy bots had no escape now. In Wesson's calloused mind, they were nothing but scrap metal now if all continued to go well.

* * *

Craig slammed a fresh battery cell in his warm rifle and steaded his holographic sight on an approaching bot. Three hot plasma rounds later, it was terminated from binary existence. Climbing up to a kneeling position on the balls of his feet, he searched out more targets with his right eye fixed on his sight and his other eye open, giving him a better field of view. Checking over his right shoulder, Oscar was still prone and reloading, all the while keeping his head and eyes forward.

But when Craig looked to Nata-Le, he found her shaking to pieces behind a large tree.

"Nata-Le! Pull it together and keep firing!" he shouted to her over the earsplitting sounds of weapons discharging all around him.

She glimpsed up at Craig when she heard his voice, bracing her rifle close to her chest as if it was an energy shield to protect her. She wanted to throw up and soil herself all in the same timespan. Fear had stricken her, taking over her trained mind that was a virgin to battle as she, herself was with a mate. But with an uneasy breath, she regained her trained thoughts along with her courage. Chasing away the fright just enough to the back of her mind, she rounded the tree and looked for something to kill that was a machine.

There...a bot dashed out from behind the transport in front of her. Her rifle shook in her tremoring hands as she brought it up to her shoulder, placing the dim red-dot scope at the round center mass of the bot. Feeling her throat tighten when the droid brought it's plasma arm down at the prisoners, she threw her breathing techniques to the wind and drove the trigger back. Her rifle shuttered from the long burst of plasma leaving the barrel. Three rounds went wide, but four found their fatal marks that disintegrated the thin armor of the bot, melting vital internal operating components to its survival.

Nata-Le was beginning to realize that she had it in her now. She only needed to be motivated just enough to brush her young, feminine self aside to bring out her training and the taste for blood.

That was until she caught a glimpse of countless more bots coming around the transport, seeking to kill the prisoners that were lying and crying on the ground.

"_Well, at least I'm not the only one who's scared..."_

* * *

"RELOAD, YANAR!"

It was the third time Stenson had to yell at the Ambassador. With his cloak already unfolded to make way for the reload, Yanar hadn't quite come regained his senses to be of any help. His hands were still over his ears, protecting his vital mechanisms of hearing that he still wanted to keep. He wanted to hear his offspring say "daddy" without being deaf as a stone.

That was if he made it out of the fight alive so he could have a chance to reproduce.

Stenson reached over and grabbed a warm spent titanum casing and tossed it at Yanar, hitting the stunned brown echidna in the head with it. The Field Marshal was relieved when Yanar snapped his head around to him –he hadn't knocked the Ambassador unconscious with the heavy round object.

"I need a reload, Yanar!" he shouted over what he knew was the ringing in Yanar's ears. He had it too.

Yanar hesitated for a brief moment that Stenson knew was wasted valuable time, and reached into the large rucksack and pulled out another magazine. Practically heaving it to Stenson, the Field Marshal took it and shot a quick glimpse down at the first two rounds that he was going to be sending down range. _"Slammers!"_ he said over a mirth in his head. Pressing the release catch just above the trigger, he dropped the empty magazine out from the _Diplomat _before chucking it aside, and replaced it with the fresh one. Bearing his teeth from the rush of adrenalin, he pulled the op-rod back to his shoulder that was music to his ringing ears. With the next round in battery, Stenson took off the night vision setting of the scope, centered the top of the glowing red arrow of a crosshair over the last transport that was emptying out bots from the rear...and continued giving them a bad case of the "Legionnaires' disease".

* * *

The situation was starting to look desperate in Ell-Tee's fierce eyes. To his right, he could still see Wesson lying on the ground and shielding someone or something over his body, and to his left, Vickers and the two Centurions were giving the new oncoming bots all they could dish out with their blasters. But what was really unsettling to him; he wasn't hearing the _Diplomat_ orating its reports of destruction. He began to wonder if the Field Marshal was really becoming withered in his old age. The reload should have been done over ten seconds ago.

Pushing all thoughts aside except for his valuable training, he fired a series of bursts at two Eggbots, rendering them into molting white hot ribbons. He could see the front of the transport that he knew they were coming from, but his view of it was mostly obstructed by the rectangular tomb he created during the opening shots of the ambush.

That all soon changed when he saw a glimmer of purple light streaking across the ozone filled air that passed over Wesson again. Ell-Tee only hoped the poor boy hadn't lost his nerve yet.

* * *

The time for him to get to his feet and break for cover elapsed at over three-thousand feet per second as two _Slammers _raced over his head. Their fast streaking aura of purple light brightened the hedgehog's face once more. Wesson did his best to keep his game face on as the stunned look on the hedgeho'sg face almost sent him into a frenzy of laughter. Wesson could tell that the aqua furred hog had never witnessed anything this raw or destructive in his existence.

The lead round impacted just forward of the rear compartment, picking up the tail of the ship from the ground just enough to start swinging it around. It wasn't more than a half second later when the follow up came. The added inertia that struck dead center on the transport ripped it open at the constructed seams, tossing bots and bulk crates through the air that rained down in a ballet of destruction. At that moment, Wesson had a new found respect for physics and the wonders that it brought to help win a pitched battle.

Leaving the stupefied hedgehog where he lay on the ground, Wesson bolted up to his feet and swung his carbine out and dug it into his shoulder; ready to kill anything. Throwing his battle attuned senses to his team, he realized in tactical horror that their base of fire was about to collapse. The bots were out of their knee-jerk modes and beginning to process a counter-attack that Wesson knew that the very "green" Centurions couldn't repel.

Fostering his resolute resolve that was going to be projected by his carbine, he purposely forgot about the hedgehog's friends above him, and sat off to reinforce Craig and the others from the growing tide that was coming in mass numbers.

* * *

Vickers was on his last battery and things weren't looking like they were going to stop anytime soon. If anything he wanted to do –if he survived the skirmish– was to go back to Albion and roast Wesson's bird. There was no way that the Eggbot force that they were dealing with was "just" a platoon size. Between him and Ell-Tee, they must've dropped at least two and a half squads of machines, neglecting to count what the Centurions had finished off.

"Ammo status!?" he shouted out over the low, cracking impulse sounds of the blasters. Looking dead at the two red echidnas, who were doing their best to hold the line, Vickers saw fingers shoot up in the air that quickly went down just as fast –two and three.

"_Crap!"_ Ell-Tee cursed under his breath. He wasn't too far off on his count as well. Nice thing about the whole affair, he had enough energy in his battery packs to stay in the game a little while longer if he had too. It just meant he was going to have to be a little more conservative with his close fire support techniques.

He saw the outline of three bots coming at him just to his right. At first, he could see their round hulks from the passing plasma fire that seemed to miss them by mere inches. But soon they entered into the flood lights, and that made Ell-Tee's job the more easier.

He was horridly wrong when he squeezed the trigger. Nothing! _"OH, CRAP!"_

"RELOADING!" he yelled out at the top of his lungs.

Everything went back to training; dropping the large lithium box down; searching his pack that was beside him; snagging another cell; feeling the anxiety as the bots closed in, their plasma arms lowering down at him.

Vickers took three shots and dropped the far left bot that was about kill his Lieutenant. Centering his fixed iron sights on the next bot in line, he squeezed the trigger. Only one shot leaped out from the rifle that only melted the skin of the bot. It was just enough to divert its attention off from Ell-Tee, and rotate its permanent smiling head around toward Vickers. Soon, its blaster arm elevated with mechanical precision.

All the corporal could do was grumble to himself. _"Ah, hell..."_

...Something flew through the air that for once, wasn't bright enough to be plasma fire, but was too slow to be something from Stenson's _Diplomat_. It was a bolt; piercing the air and sticking halfway through the metal head of the bot, cracking the positronic brain that didn't have much of anything for freewill.

Ell-Tee had just slapped his fresh battery in the large well when he saw the second bot drop to the ground like a falling statue. The commotion was just enough to make the last Eggbot look to the trees from where the lone bolt had originated, giving Ell-Tee enough breathing room to shake away his anxiety and let his weapon come alive again.

The bot was little more than a smoldering hunk of white hot liquid in the end.

* * *

Rob-O fired an arrow that slammed right between the eyes of a bot. Reaching around and grabbing for a second arrow, he placed it on the gut string of his bow and pulled it back passed his ear.

Out of the corner of Wesson's eye came a bot. He swiftly turned to shoot it, but as he brought his barrel up, an arrow pieced through the center mass of the machine, severing wires that ran precious energy and information to the CPUs. Not even looking back –as the arrow was not for him– Wesson hurried over to Nata-Le; she was visibly shaking as she tried put forth the effort to reload her weapon. He stopped in front of her and helped her fumbling hands find the square hole to reenergize her weapon. When he felt the springs snap the cell in place, he took a long look at her and squeezed her shoulder with his right hand. "Follow m..."

His life was almost cut almost fatally short when a plasma bolt hissed past his head, causing him to flinch and press up against Nata-Le to gain cover of the tree. With his anger flowing across his eyes, he leaned out from the side from the tree and gave a bot –which he was sure had tried to kill him– a quick burst that dropped it to the ground. He smiled broadly when the bot ceased to move. He finally got to kill something!

"Follow me!" he finally finished, looking back to the petrified girl. For a brief second, he felt guilty at himself for shouting at Nata-Le the way he did. Wesson knew that she would accept the order, but he felt that his voice, which sounded like a demon from Hell, was issuing it as her death warrant. He honestly couldn't help it, a dingo –and a dead one at that– made him sound discomforting to virgin ears.

Ducking low and quickly zig-zagging with Wesson as best she could her over coming physical and mental self, Nata-Le wanted to turn around and run back to the tree, and possibly away from the fight all together. But it was only her sense of duty and honor that cut her short from becoming a deserter. She kept a few meters distance apart from Wesson and she was glad she did. A few too many plasma bolts that had come between them as she dart across the cumbersome undergrowth. With another volley of enemy fire racing overhead and sometimes singing the ground around her, she was finding the ten yard sprint was taking forever to complete. She was wishing that she had done more physical training before she had signed up for this "recce" run.

Wesson dropped right beside Craig and let another two bots have it with his carbine. Nata-Le was soon there beside him.

"Prisoners!"

Craig heard Wesson's raspy voice even over his own weapon. Touching off two quick shots that sent a bot to the ground, he gave the distressing news; "I saw a civilian take a round from one of the bots. I was in the middle of a..."

Wesson cut him off curtly, "...Don't give me freakin' excuses now! They still keeping their heads down?"

"Along with ours!"

Wesson took a pop shot at a bot that exposed itself just enough from around the ship to receive a good dose of blue, static pulse energy. "Good! Stand-to and advance...!"

"...WHAT!" shrilled Nata-Le.

Wesson shot his head over, his eyes crimson with rage, along with the burning hunks of bots and ships. "We take the fight to them! It's the only way to win this, now!"

"Tactics?" spat out Craig.

"Can you leapfrog?" Wesson's raspy voice was now eerily calm.

Craig replied with a fast nod. "Oscar!"

"Present and accounted for, SIR!"

Craig smiled at the knee-jerk response. Oscar was holding it together far better than anyone else who wasn't a Legionnaire. "Leapfrog advance; stagger formation!"

Craig swapped out to a fresh cell, nodded to his left and right, and stood up along with Wesson. Oscar followed suite and took the lead role; kneeling down and shooting at anything that moved that wasn't a Furry. Craig bolted in front of him with Wesson to his left, taking down a pair of machines as they gained ground across the twelve yard space between them and the prisoners.

Nata-Le soon treaded to the forefront, finding the more bots she took down, the less she would have to worry about killing her. She still felt the tightness in her throat and her stomach the whole time, but the only way she knew she could feel better was by trudging on to victory --one bot at a time.

Stopping just in front of Wesson, she fired blindly over the heads of the hostages; their status changing on a whim thanks to the bots. When Oscar appeared in front of her, she shifted her weapon to the left, striking down another bot with a pull from the trigger. Red bolts littered the air around her suddenly. She could see the muzzle flashes of the blaster arms lighting up the hulks of the bots. She cringed when one landed at her feet, making her hop back.

Then Wesson come around in front of her, firing his pulse carbine that she could see drop two bots...maybe three. She felt safe again at that moment. With that thought instilled in her, she brought up more courage from her heart that made her tense her hands around the hand-guard and pistol grip of her rifle. Before long, she readied herself to...

There was no time to think or move, just scream! She saw it coming; the red ball of hot energy streaking towards her as if a homing beacon was put on her. It shocked and burned her all in the same excruciating instant, her left arm and shoulder taking the blunt of the impact that hurled her towards the Mobian surface. She twisted over enough that when her smoldering shoulder met the ground. More pain shot to her skull as she expelled every ounce of air from her lungs in an earsplitting scream. The smell of burnt clothes, fur, and flesh invaded her nostrils which seemed to push the burning and agonizing pain deeper into her head. Panic and shock soon took their dementive course when her eyes fell on the charged remains of her arm.

All she could do was scream from the torturous agony.

* * *

Ell-Tee was disciplining himself not to be jumpy. Nothing came running across his sights for the last half minute and he was afraid that if something did, he would regret it. The noise of battle was beginning to die along with the bots they killed. Turning to his right, he saw Vickers lying down for cover while the two Centurions were still dishing it out. Their target, Ell-Tee finally figured out, was the still blackness that only they could see.

"Cease fire–cease fire!" he ordered across the ranks. Vickers instantly stood up and shouted the same commands, waving his right hand in front of his face along with his curt commands. "Status!?"

It took Vickers awhile before he relayed the team's condition; "No casualties, Ell-Tee!"

With a thumbs up from the ground, Ell-Tee took in a long, deep breath of the thick ozone air before standing to his feet, and placing his auto-cannon at the ready in his hands, shifting his gaze to the rear and to the trees; searching for where that lone bolt came from. "We're not alone, Corporal! Eyes peeled!"

"Yes, sir!"

He was about to take a step further when something filtered over the ringing sound in his ears. For a brief instance it sounded like someone was laughing their head off.

He was dreadfully right when he heard Craig:

"MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!"

Ell-Tee's blood charged through his veins once more as he darted across the ground in a furious sprint. As he brushed past the young saplings of trees and bushes, he could see figures jumping down from the trees all around him as he hurriedly made his way over; Vickers taking up the rear. At first he feared it was Wesson, but his sinking thoughts of the young sergeant meeting his demise –or getting more replacement hardware– vanished when he heard the harsh screams from a girl in immense pain.

He could see Wesson kneeling beside her, his weapon slung across his back and doing all he could to aid and comfort her. He definitely wasn't alone: Craig and Oscar were beside her, along with what was left of the now freed prisoners crowding around them.

Somewhere a soft stuttering female voice ranged over Nata-Le's crying screams, "Everyone--everyone please move back and give the poor girl some air."

Wesson looked up to see Ell-Tee and Vickers approach. "She took a hit to the arm and shoulder!"

"What!?" Ell-Tee shouted, not hearing Wesson's raspy voice over Nata-Le's moaning screams.

"Hang in there, Nat!" came Oscar, trying to calm her down, rubbing her legs.

"She's going into shock, Ell-Tee!" clarified Wesson, bumping up the triage level.

Ell-Tee placed his weapon by the feet of an elderly feline girl and began to see how bad the damage was to Nata-Le's arm. It wasn't good. Wesson had already striped away the burnt fabric of her blue battle jacket while Craig was injecting her with a sedative from his battlefield medical kit that would still keep her conscious, but as loopy as a village idiot. Ell-Tee could see the burnt contusions were somewhere in the neighborhood of third degree burns, stretching from her shoulder to the lower portion of her biceps. Shads of purple blood and red tissue glimmered in the surrounding flood lights.

She stopped screaming from the harsh pain as the injection calmed it down some, but it wasn't relieving the shock. Oscar took his backpack off and placed it under her head. He could see tears raining down her face.

"I want my mom!" she whimpered out shrilly. "I want my MOM...!"

Craig choked back his tears, putting his leadership training to the forefront as best he could. "We're here, Naty! We're not going to leave you, okay!"

Ell-Tee held her head, stroking her hair as gently as his mechanical hand could actuate. Wesson glanced up at him, slowly shaking his abjectly pained face with his observation. He didn't have to say anything. Ell-Tee knew she was probably going to lose her arm, but it was her life that they all worried about. Between her being borderline traumatized –probably the worst she has ever been in her life– from her first battle, and with shock really starting to set in from the reverberating pain and loss of blood, they could lose her with little thought of anguish to spare from her friends.

"What did you give her, Craig?" asked Ell-Tee in a disarming voice.

"Anti-shock! It only helps for the first hour or so. We can only give her one injection for every twelve, though. Stuff is brutally potent and could make her heart explode if we give her more! But it calms her down and eases the pain a little."

Ell-Tee nodded, looking over his shoulder at the aqua blue hedgehog. He just stood there with an expressionless face.

"Rob-O!" came the same soft voice he heard before. Ell-Tee rasied an eye-brow when he witnessed a red female echidna race to the one she called out and embraced him. "I knew you'd come."

Ron-O returned the hug just as tight. "I wasn't going to let them take my Mari-An," he scoffed. "Anyone else injured?"

"Yea," Oscar replied somberly, "a lynx took one in the chest. I'm sorry but he's onto the next life. "

Rob-O released Mari-An along with his anger; "And you about got more of us killed, friend..."

"...Someone's approaching from behind!" The wolf who touted the warning swung his crossbow to the rear, pointing it at a large figure dressed in black. He could see it was wearing a cloak of some kind, and held something enormous over his shoulder.

"Stay your weapons, please. We mean no harm." It was Yanar.

"Field Marshal, we've got a problem!" reported Vickers.

"I see her, anything that these people can help wi..."

"...Yanar!?" inquired Rob-O, cutting off Stenson as he rigidly walked up to the brown echidna.

"It's Ambassador Yanar now, Rob-O," he replied with a smile, awaiting to accept Rob's hand.

He would get it, but not on friendly terms.

Rob hurled his fist at Yanar's face, connecting it to his left jaw line with precision accuracy. Before Yanar could blink, he was on the ground, caressing the side of his face, which was visibly stunned.

"Yo'...hey!" blurted out Craig, rising up from beside Nata-Le.

Rob-O's friends went straight for their leader, holding the hedgehog back from making another attempt at Yanar's physical well being. Stenson placed his rifle on the ground and marched straight up to Rob-O, looking squarely down at the hooded face of the hedgehog that was visibly painted with scorn and distrust.

"I understand your quarrel with the Ambassador, Rob-O...is it?" Stenson got a confirming nod. "Okay...listen, that girl needs our help right now, so put it aside until she gets the care she needs."

Nata-Le suddenly began to scream again, only to be quieted down when Wesson began caressing her face gently with his natural hand. Stenson saw this, taking note of something that he was actually afraid of from Wesson.

"Why should I listen to you, friend. After all, thou art is with this Yanar and his cold shouldered society..."

Stenson waved his hand, cutting Rob-O short of what Stenson also believed the people in Albion were. "I'm not with those pacifist low-lifes, hedgehog. If it wasn't for my kind, your little bow and arrow party might've been the end of you..."

"...Field Marshal, we might lose her in due time!"

Stenson fired off a glance at Ell-Tee. The urgency in his look said it all. "Do you have a base with a proper medical center?" asked the Field Marshal evenly.

"I'm sorry, we don't," answered Rob-O hesitantly. "Me and my merry band of Crazy Kritters have been using the ground for our beds as of late."

"Hear that, Mr. Yanar?" scoffed Stenson.

Yanar was back on his feet, but still feeling lower than scum. He nodded his head.

Stenson looked towards Wesson. The boy was definitely changing with every stroke of his hand to Nata-Le's tearing face. Something was turning him inside out and Stenson knew it was probably going to save the girl. "Sergeant Wesson!"

Wesson snapped his head up. "Yes, Field Marshal!"

"You're the fastest runner we have. You need to take that girl back to Albion and get her the proper care she needs." In the back of his racing mind, Stenson feared that he brought forth an underlying message with the order. "Are you up to it?"

It was over nine kilometers back to Albion; eight miles. Wesson could run three miles at a full double-timed pace in about fifteen minutes, but he didn't know about the last five he needed to hump. Plus the fact of having a girl in sever pain within his arms during the whole run added to his burdening mind. _"Thank Dimitri I have a replacement arm!"_

He looked down at her, seeing her face blushing red from her crying. He shot his head back up to Stenson, his face filled with confidence and resolve:

"...I'm game, Field Marshal!"

"You sure, Sergeant!?" asked Stenson with a nod.

"Yes, sir! I am totally game for this!"

Stenson gave a curt nod. "Lighten yourself up expect for your carbine..."

"...I'm leaving it too. It'll slow me down," retorted Wesson, taking his weapon, jacket, and utility belt off. Even leaving his pistol.

"How are you going to defend yourself, dear sir?" asked Mari-An in a calm voice.

Wesson glanced up at her, but not before wrapping Nata-Le in his jacket. He smirked at her and brought up his right cybernetic hand, crushing his fingers down to show his intent of what he would do to anything that got in his way.

Mari-An nodded and graced the ground over to him; "Could you be so kind to deliver a message to Gala-Na from me?"

Wesson stood up to her to formally address her request. "Yes, Milady," he acknowledge with his gritted voice. He had an idea of what was going to be said; he could see her eyeing what skin he had left on his muzzle.

"It's just to her and not to you." And with that, she slapped Wesson on the side of the face, rocking his head over slightly. Gasps filled the smoldering air around them.

"I understand the message, Milady," Wesson replied, feeling the stinging burn on what was left of his face. "I'm wasting time now."

"Right you are, Goddess speed."

Wesson gently picked Nata-Le off the ground. She was shaking in his arms the whole while. He walked passed the gathered group with pride rigidly instilled in his body, his face showing determination and resolution to his mission. When he passed Stenson, he shot a quick glance at him and said; "I will not fail, Field Marshal."

Stenson waited before he replied; "Your allegiance to your mission doesn't lie with me...its with her. Now make haste!"

And that he did; leaning forward with Nata-Le's legs over his left arm, and her body over his right to support her, hammering his feet across the ground.

All the while as he cleared the first hundred yards with a breaking pace, he thought why he suddenly found it in him to do this. For a long time, he thought only of himself and maybe of his bird and comrades throughout the ongoing war. But something did change him, and Stenson had seen it...

Wesson had never heard a girl scream so hard for her mother in his life.

* * *

I may be indesposed for a long while I'm afraid. I will try to get the follow up before certain things take me away from this. Please review...or at least tell me how I'm doing.

Thanks go out to the dedicated readers. I see your numbers, and can only offer my thanks.

The next chapter was inspired by a true event over thousands of years ago.

* * *


	11. Soul Touch

* * *

Here it is...and the last update for a long while, I'm afraid. Hope you enjoy the little story/qoute at the top. Best to remember it. If you don't know the meaning...look it up. A shoe company is named after the word the runner speaks. "Nike" for short.

Disclaimer...I observe the rights of the orginial creaters of the fandom.

Enjoy!

* * *

He was glistening in the open court, his tan skin lathered with sweat as he found the last bit of endurance to inch towards the sitting king. Breathing hard, his lungs shaking as he did, his feet aching over his sandals. It was there that he fought to take in his last breath of air...

"Nenikékamen!" he said with gapping smile.

(We are victorious!)

And there, he collapsed where he stood...dead! –Pheidippides and the run from Marathon to Athens.

* * *

**Soul-Touch**

By: Mauser

* * *

Rude awakenings were becoming the norm for Snively. Most of the time he was practically thrown out of bed by his cloned uncle. However, this morning didn't see a boot or a rough knock from Eggman; instead, an alarm.

Torturous as it was, he powered himself to get passed the obnoxious waling sound, get dressed, and scramble towards his console. Arriving, he switched on his triple LCD monitors and focused on the incoming information that had triggered the alarms. An overhead shot from a permanently fixed satellite over the Kingdom of Merica made what little looming sleep Snively had expunge from his mind. Wreckage and burning fires glimmered like a star on the screen at first, but with a rotation of a dial, Snively brought the image closer to the ground.

Slain Eggbots projected to his pupils over the fires and floodlights, knocking all notions of an easy mop up operation in Deer Wood Forest to the four winds.

"SNIVELY!"

Gathering his collective self that was jolted from his sub-conscious, thanks to his Uncle's booming voice, Snively finally found it in him to reply. "We have a problem; possibly a big one," he said over the com-link.

"What is it!?"

Snively held a short pause as he conceived a reply that wouldn't get him yelled at further. "Mercias's resistence fighters have raided a supply point in Deer Wood Forest..."

"...So! Have you checked video feeds from the attack yet? Do I have to think of _everything_!"

Snively grumbled under his breath as he searched the data links for what he was looking for. There; it was only one, but he hoped it would ease his master's mind. Activating the link, he saw it was from a lone Eggbot, facing South, Snively guessed. All of a sudden the image went green for an instant, exposing two characters in the tint of the night-vision that was partially defeated from the ambient glow of the floodlights. Snively could see the figure on the right was a hedgehog; Rob-O the Hedg, he realized after seeing the hood and the bow cocked back, ready to let an arrow fly. Tracing the arrow over to the left, what he observed next made him flex his head back in puzzlement.

"_What is an echidna doing there!?"_ But then he sleuthed over the echidna's pose, noticing that he was brandishing a stout little carbine towards Rob-O. It made Snively question if he was friend or foe. Then came a struggle, the echidna evading the arrow and hurling himself on top of Rob-O. For an instant, Snively saw the hint of the metallic replacement dreads on the echinda as he smiled inwardly at what he hoped was the other menacing hedgehog's death.

Rob-O was as much a thorn in Eggman's side as Sonic; just only on a different hemisphere.

His pupils felt as if they were burnt out of existence from the sudden whiteout on the screen. Then the screen went black, producing an error code only moments later. Reaching back to his keyboard, Snively replayed the video, but this time he slowed it down and override the night-vision sequence. Even so, the image still blinded him. What looked to be the hillside exploding from a bomb intrigued him at first, but with the purple dot that followed up a split second later engulfing his screen before it went black again, Snively leaned himself back in his chair while trying to fathom what he had observed.

Reaching back to the com-button, he pressed it; "Master, are you by a monitor?"

"Yes! Send me _something_!"

"_Well, at least I'm not the only who hates mornings!" _Making sure he wasn't going to send any of his programs to Eggman by accident --including that of the new Com-Bots-- he opened the files to the videos, sent them, and waited intently as he mused over his observations.

"_...Purple fire? Hmm, looked like a plasma round...but larger. And that flash..."_ Glancing back to the overhead image again, he retraced the transport that was split in two. Zooming in with a twist of the dial, he further inspected the sides that he could see. Not believing his eyes, he shook his head and reaffirmed his sight back to the screen; the back half of the transport was crushed inwards, like a kid had thrown a heavy ball at a hover-car door and dented it.

It didn't make sense to him; Rob-O didn't have any weapons of that magnitude.

"_...but I think that echidna has something to do with it."_

The com-link finally chattered. "Snively, send a patrol and search the surrounding area. Something's afoot! Order for stun mode for the echidnas; they looked awfully familiar and I want to know _why_ they are there!"

"Very well, Doctor. Consider it done," Snively said in an obeying voice, though his mind wanted to reach out to the other end and slap him.

With the orders sent, he relaxed a bit before he checked the status of "his" project. Everything seemed to be in order: his key elements were cooperating to their forced tasks, the bots were being switched online and receiving the last component, and to his satisfaction, everything was on schedule.

The last thing he needed to do was to create the orders and program for the bots. Realizing he was now the only flesh and blood being awake in New Robotropolis, he opened a handful of files on two separate screens...and began to work out the orders for his bots.

He only hoped that the morning's set-back would remain in Mercia.

* * *

"We can't waste anymore time...we need to move, Field Marshal!"

Stenson nodded at Ell-Tee and picked his rifle off the ground. It was still warm and breathing out thin traces of smoke. "Mr. Hedgehog; since this is your theater of operations, what is the response time for a counter-attack?"

Rob-O rested himself with his bow while standing. "Mere minutes if we don't make haste. They mostly come from the north."

An affirming nod. "Ell-Tee; take point! Craig!?"

"Present and accounted for, Mr. Stenson."

Stenson crossed his face in annoyance, "That's _Field Marshal_! Doesn't any of you pacifist bunch ever listen?" He smiled inwards when he observed Craig and the rest of the Centurions sulking at his comment. Stenson's show of force towards Eggman's machines along with Rob-O's temperament to Yanar had become a lesson to all of them: inaction brings on more problems and alienates you from your friends.

"Take the rear and help anyone who is struggling. What's your ammo count?"

Craig along with Oscar and the rest fiddled with pouches on their belts. "Four cells left!" Craig confirmed with everyone else coming likewise or close to that number.

"Friend?" Stenson glanced over to Rob-O. "Thou art has been kind to my merry bunch, but I must decline your offering of sanctuary. We can travel our separate way if you don't mind?"

"I'm not giving you an option! We are going to take you south and _then_ we will leave you there." Stenson began to see Rob-O's eyes turn to liquid. "Before you go off on me, arrow boy, you have to understand my interest in you..."

"...Can we talk on the way?" blurted out Yanar.

Stenson nodded. "Good observation, Mr. Ambassador! There actually might be some hope with you after all. Craig, you ready!?"

"Yes, _Field Marshal_!"

Stenson threw the scornful comment aside. "Good, lets go!"

With Ell-Tell leading the way, his auto-cannon ready to hose the surrounding area in front of him at the drop of a hat, Stenson resumed his observations to Rob-O:

"I have interests in Albion that concerns you and your fighters..."

"...Me!? Why should I sacrifice my people for your interests in Albion? They've done nothing for us!"

"But I have, sir, and I hope that puts me on a different plain than Gala-Na and Yanar!" Stenson turned his head slightly behind him, seeing Yanar trailing to his right and rounding a tree. "I've brought people here to seek sanctuary from the wars on Angel Island..."

"...Angel Island is at war?" came Mari-An, stepping past Rob-O to Stenson's right. "What about the Guardians? Is Knuckles helping?"

"Yes, but he is with this Sonic the Hedgehog and the Kingdom of Acorn fighting on the front lines in this mess. But he was also the one who sent me here."

"Why?" asked Rob-O, pushing his feelings of not wanting to assist this echidna aside. Rob-O still admired Knuckles for what he did over two years ago.

"He's a Guardian...he looks after his people when he isn't concentrated on the Emerald or _US!"_

Rob-O and Mari-An wanted to stop dead in their tracks, but the threat of reprisal made them kept their pace with the tall echidna. "What do you mean by _US_?"asked Mari-An.

Stenson glanced back behind him. Finding that no one was lagging behind and Vickers wasn't an earshot away, he adjusted his rifle on his shoulder along with his feelings, and said:

"Let me warn you about my brethren..."

* * *

"_Ehhhhnnnn_..."

Being mindful of the injured girl in his arms, Wesson did his best to slow himself to an easy stop. With every hundred yards he crossed in the forest, his surroundings were becoming less vague. Breathing hard from his efforts to keep pace with himself, he lowered Nata-Le gently to the soft ground and took a quick glance over her injured body. She was becoming more of a mess within each passing mile, and the last fifty yards produced the first moan of the trek. What he saw now made him worry. Shivers started to replace her sanity, leaving Wesson with the thought that she might not make it.

Everything he had bolted from his senses when she looked up at him, her purple sad eyes meeting his. "I don't wanna die..."

Wesson felt something tighten in his heart. He tried to shun it away and replace it with something sinister, but he couldn't muster the freewill to achieve the mind-set. With his breathing somewhat normal, he beamed a long stare filled with sorrow back to her, and did his best to domesticate his dark voice. "Stay with me...please. We shouldn't be too far."

As much as he tried to shower his voice with sympathy, it still came out harsh and demonic. At that moment, he was glad that he had ripped the heart out of the dingo who almost crushed his larynx some months back. The dog's face was priceless in Wesson's mind when he showed the still beating heart to him just before the spark of life left his eyes. It was why he wore a glove over his robotic hand; to keep the blood from trickling into the joints of his fingers.

But even with that flashback salivating in his mind, it still didn't prepare his emotions for what Nata-Le did to him next!

"I want my mom..." she whimpered at first with her voice trailing from her tremors. Wesson kept what was left of his eyes pinned down at her glistening jades.

"...I want my _MOM_!"

Her scream filed off what callouses he had left on his heart. "Calm down, please..." He barely choked it out, stopping himself short when his voice sounded something on the lines of normalcy.

"...you can get us both killed..." His reply sounded stubborn in a sorrowful way; never once had his ears heard something like that come from him.

"...I want to go _home_," Natal-Le whimpered to him; her eyes locked onto his, opening her soul to his heart.

"_No! Not me..." _It started out as a blur; something that he had never experienced outside of physical pain that seemed to be lost in his soul. He never felt it come across his snout until it passed over the edge of his metal plates and barreled across the last patch of skin on his face. _"...not me!?"_

It was a lone tear.

Picking her head up from the ground and holding her within his arms, Wesson kept her close to his chest. He remembered seeing this done by couples when he sat amongst them in the Hidden Palace Zone, holding each other as if their love would shield them from harm. Never understanding it, he ranked this show of affection to something along the lines of giving in to defeat, figuring it would never challenge a blaster head-on in a face-to-face fight.

But with every hard shunt of breaths from her chokes that echoed in his chest, he saw it differently in the shadowed moon light of the forest canopy...and it scared him beyond all measure. Granted it strengthened his conscious to stand to his feet with her locked in his arms, but he was scared of the feeling it produced inside him.

"I will get you home," he decried to her, "you have my word." His voice was stiff again, resolve floating over his emotionally charged face as he continued to stare upon her.

Taking the initial steps that propelled him forward, he took one last look at the young girl in his arms. Her eyes were still trained on him the whole time...and it was at that moment that he knew his worst fear in his life had come true.

He was soul-touched.

* * *

Rob-O still couldn't believe his pointed ears even after they traveled a mile that seemed to help Stenson's words soak in. Mari-An and the wolf with the crossbow, who Yanar learned his name was Dirk, kept silent the whole mile which Stenson figured they were pondering their reservations with him. He couldn't blame them.

"So, you are telling me that my merry band should be 'on edge' sort to speak when your followers come a knocking?" asked Rob-O.

Stenson kept his eyes forward towards Ell-Tee, anticipating a hand signal that he hoped would never come. "At the very least, sir. I honestly don't know what the future holds for us: we could mend our ways with the Guardians, or we could keep going right back at each other's throats when the Island is purged of its enemies. I just only hope one of my compatriots keeps his loud mouth closed to keep this place a secret."

Dirk brought his thoughts to the conversation, keeping his steel crafted crossbow trained to the left flank under his arm the whole time. "But you are asking _us_ to help _you_...why? You seem to have everything under control."

Rob-O picked up from there; "Yes, you can help us. Your weapons have demonstrated that we can beat back these machines and seize the day for the Kingdom and for Deer Wood."

Stenson sighed. "I'm sorry, but my duties lie elsewhere. In fact, I get to learn how to tap dance when I get back home. My superior is going to want to know everything that has transpired, and why I have twelve _unoptanium_ rounds missing. Sugarcoating doesn't fall within our standards, I'm afraid." Stenson paused for a brief second, wondering if he should let the chips lay where the fall. "And you are going to need an army, which you don't have."

"What do you mean _don't_?" quickly shot back Rob-O, "we have enough here to do what's needed. You saw how we helped you take down those machines."

Stenson sighed again; the hedgehog didn't have a good grasp of military tactics. "Rob-O; don't take this hard but all you're doing is prolonging the inevitable. My kind is about to slump that low if we don't get past our differences in a hurry. Like I said, you need an army which you don't have. But..." Stenson turned his crude diminutive stare towards Yanar; "I think I know someone who does. Problem is, they leave it dormant."

"But will they help?" asked Mari-An, "After all, we haven't heard from them in _long_ time."

Yanar swallowed hard before he countered. "And like wise, Milady. I'm sure if you hadd come to us and asked, the council could have made a decision of some-sort. All we needed was evidence..."

"...Evidence, you say!?" spot back Rob-O. Stenson was right on his heals. "What more evidence do you want..."

"...I'm sure they heard the screams?" coldly added Stenson. "Oh yes, I remember...you look to keep your peace anyway you can. That was what you and Gala-Na said to me...right?"

Yanar felt the weight of everyone's stare resting on him. "Yes...you are correct, Field Marshal," he answered with a defeated tone.

"And this is why I need your assistance, Rob-O," said Stenson. "I need you to hold true to your duties as Sentry for Albion with what you have left. Hopefully something by then can be worked out with the _Council_ and chiropractor!"

Yanar snorted at the comment; "What do you mean _chiropractor_, Mr. Stenson?"

Looking over his right shoulder, he smirked at the Ambassador. "Well someone has to give you a backbone! It could be me..."

"...or that young man," finished Mari-An.

* * *

A quick hop over a downed tree saw the completion of another mile...or so he guessed. Wesson usually carried a strand of beads with him that he used to count his paces and miles as he navigated through the country. Dingo country he might add. But with his arms occupied with a bundled and shivering girl, plus with his beads back on Angel Island, it was pure dead-reckoning.

Darting through a clearing as fast as he could move with his burning legs, he began to smell the salty air of the sea. Sprinting forward for another few yards, it became pronounced, igniting what energy he had left to keep going.

"_Almost there..."_

He glanced down at Nata-Le, her face expressionless inside the jacket that she was wrapped in. "Ma'am?"

"Yes..." she fought to say.

Wesson felt the weakness of his emotions coming back. "We're almost there. Maybe another mile or so," he said over his hard panting breaths from the long run.

"I–I don't think I can...make...it?"

"Oh yes you can! Don't give up on me now, trooper. I've gone this far with you, and you can return the favor just by staying alive!" Wesson's mind began to race, finding ways to keep her conscious for the last leg of the journey. "What's your name?"

"Na–Nata-Le_ee_..."

"Alright...Nata-Le, my name is Wesson. Can you say Wesson?" He swung left around a tree and shot through another clearing, keeping his senses attuned over his emotions.

"Wes–Wesson..."

"Good, Nata-Le...do you have parents?" He throttled faster now; the trees were becoming less in numbers.

"Ye_ss_..."

"Roger that...are they still around?"

"Yes..."

Wesson smiled for a brief instance, jumping over another log that he remembered belonged there. "You've got a notch in your rifle over me...mine are dead. Can you name them?"

"Yes_ss_..." She paused for a moment; it made Wesson look at her for a bit as he pressed on. "Ames is...my father." Her voice was starting to grow weaker. "...my mom is...is Car-Le_ee_..."

There, Wesson caught sight of the twinkle of stars through the trees just above the horizon. "You're about to see her soon enough! Just hang in..."

She was motionless in his arms. "Nata-Le!?" he shouted. She didn't move or speak; not even a whimper.

Scrambling to a dead halt, Wesson brought her to the ground as gently as he could. "Nata-Le; speak to me, trooper!" Nothing except for his hard breathing. "NATA-LE!"

Pulling the jacket down from her injured left arm, he winced when he saw the purple ooze of her life's elixir draining from her arm. _"Oh, crap!"_ He quickly shook her again, attempting to arouse her but to no avail. She was out. Fearing she might have died in his arms, he pushed two fingers on the side of her neck. Her pulse was there, but very weak.

Picking her up for what he hoped was the last time, he charge forward to the stars. Everything he had left went to his legs. He could feel the surg of energy being pumped from his heart to them, making him cast long strides that seemed to never end.

A quick dart pass a tree found him in the open field, racing towards the sea as if there was no tomorrow for either of them. At this point, he prayed to Aurora that nothing would cut him down. He'd traveled this far over his own aching feet that if he were killed, he swore he would personally slap the Goddess with what energy he had left when he reached the afterlife.

The sight of the bluff's edge made him breathe a little easier in his head. Breathing naturally was a totally different story. Scaling down the sandy cliff proved to be easier than he thought. Somehow, he believed the stars were aligned in his favor that night. So far he dodged getting plastered to the four winds from the Field Marshal's rifle, dodged an arrow, and now, the path he was trudging down at a feverish rate was the same he used to climb up from the beach. And that he was about to touch down on...

"AAHHHHH!"

Pain shot to his brain as his right leg caved under the weight and strain from his harsh trek. He succeeded in not falling on top of Nata-Le but only at the expense of ripping the muscle in his thigh even further. He screamed once more with his raspy voice grunting from the pain as he held Nata-Le over his chest. Breathing harder, more so from the torn muscle, he cocked his head up and gazed at the empty horizon of the sea that was inverted from his position on the beach. He knew Albion was there, he knew he was that much closer to it, even though he couldn't see the invisable city.

He just needed to have faith. Not from the Goddess above, he protested –she was of no help to him anymore– but faith in himself to get the mission done. His mission!

Picking himself off the ground with the unconscious girl wrapped within his arms, he staggered to his feet. Agony gripped his brain as he put weight on his right leg. Doing his best to push it aside, he stepped with his left, feeling the muscle in his right tearing open even further. He swore under his breath as he moved his heavy leg across the sand; he was that much closer.

"I'M NOT GOING TO FAIL!" he screamed out, pushing his thoughts to his legs to keep moving.

The calm shoreline lapped over the soles of his weathered boots. Grunting from another spike of pain from his injured leg, he powered on, limping as he tried to run across the water. He tried not to think that his painful dash was going to be for nothing as he stared down on the emptiness of the sea. Wesson believed it was there...he had to. She depended on him to have that faith.

Another slop from the water below him triggered more pain. He barely collapsed to the watered-ground as he felt his leg start to give way.

"I'M NOT GOING TO FAIL!" he shouted over the pain and the splashes from his limping footsteps. With his right leg connecting to the ground again, it shot more protests of pain to the deepest portions of his skull, only grunting his reply as he glanced down at the girl in his arms. Her expressionless face sealed the deal:

"I'm not going to fail you! I will not let myself do that!"

It was then that the last spark of his resolve--of his warrior soul–came up from the depths of his heart and demanded that his legs to work; to push farther than they have ever gone before. He hissed when he breathed in, screaming as he exhaled; calling on everything he had left to win the fight against time and Death. Hoping that _Journey's End _was only a painful step away...

...Ground suddenly appeared below his feet. He wanted to collapse right there and then, but the sight of the stone hedges that marked the entrance to Albion told him no. He wanted to keep going...needed to keep going.

It was her soul-touch that kept him going.

Pushing forward up the stone hill, he could see the outskirts of the beautiful white city...

"HALT RIGHT THERE!" ordered a male voice to his right.

Wesson ignored it, only slowing himself to a trickled shuffle.

"WE SAID HALT OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"

With all his energy spent, he collapsed to his knees, holding Nata-Le across his tired arms as if offering her to Aurora in defeat. And there, he cried out what he thought was his last breath:

"MEDIC!"

A male Centurion lifted himself up from the cover of a large boulder and grabbed a quick glance at the "thing" slumped down in front of them. The sight of Wesson hunched on his knees with Nata-Le curled up in his arms snapped his next order like a flip of a switch; "MEDIC TO THE FRONT, NOW!"

Shouldering his weapon behind his back, he, along with three more echidna's clad in the blue, quickly tackled the short range to Wesson. Picking Nata-Le from his arms, they helped him up from the damp rocky surface. His breathing was shallow and wheezy as he forced himself to stay conscious as he was taken by the arms.

A few yards later saw an ambulance at the ready by a hastily made outpost. And there, he saw Gala-Na with her aids and a handful of guards by her side:

"What happened?" she curtly asked, striding up to him with her aids trying their best to follow her.

Wesson forced his arms away from the Centurions as he locked every aching muscle to a halt. He breathed in deep as Gala-Na stopped right in front of him. "We..." He swallowed to clear is throat, bringing out his dark, gritty voice to the forefront; "We deprived the enemy of their binary lives and the supplies needed for the fat Overlander's war effort."

"Has anti-shock been administered to her?" asked Jessie-Ca to Gala-Na's right.

"Yes, ma'am," Wesson replied exhausted.

"But to what effect has this brought to us. A wounded girl...possibly dead..."

"...Councilwomen?" Wesson said, cutting her off.

"What!?" Wesson could see she was trying to smile under her agitation with him. This is where he liked politicians; they never knew what was coming.

"I bring a message from a Mari-An. Do you know her, Councilwoman?" He his body began to waver over his burning limbs.

"I do," she finally smiled.

"Then you should understand this as well as I do, then." And with that, Wesson brought his left arm back just enough to give the force that he figured matched that of Mari-An's, and connected his open hand on the right side of Gala-Na's face. She screamed as he fell to the rocky ground, her aids scrambling to help her as the Centurions took their own action and brought their blaster rifles up at Wesson's chest.

"Permission to FIRE!" hollered the brown Centurion in front of Wesson. He could tell the man used to much gel in his slicked, black hair.

"NO!" cried out Gala-Na from the ground. "Stay your weapons...please."

Wesson saw her right hand was still trying to caress her face from Mari-An's message. He stood there, trying to muster the best of an attention stance that his aching body would allow. It wasn't long before Gala-Na was ushered off the ground with help from her aids. To Wesson's surprise, she still had the strength to approach him.

The two locked eyes for a moment, guessing only at what the other was thinking.

"Is the message received clearly...or do you need me to elaborate?" asked Wesson, playing his voice where he wanted it. He could see it was driving the point home.

Gala-Na finally answered after a moments pause, her expression one of loathing. "Clearly understood, Mr. Wesson."

Giving out one last smirk towards her tempered face, he figured he could have the last word in the whole matter; "That's Sergeant Wesson, ma'am." And with that, he collapsed to the ground at her feet...out cold from exhaustion.

* * *

Please tell me how you feel about all this. I really want input on this. Again...thanks for reading. See you all when I get the next chapters up.

* * *


	12. Here Today

Hello everyone and welcome again. Sorry for the delay but been very buisy with new ventures. But nevertheless, here we go.

This chapter came to me just by looking at an odd tree in my back yard. I love nature as much as I love the city in their tranquil states, and this is why I'm having Aleutian and Locke bond at the edge of the badlands. The first section of the chapter was easy to write, but the following was a pain. I ended up writing the Wesson part LONG HANDED and let me tell you, I perfer the computer. My style and how I think when I go along is a lot better on a word prosessor than with a pencil. I'm not too happy with it to say the the least...possibly cause I was writing and thinking it up on the fly.

But onwards with Locke and his lost son...helping him to be found.

Disclamer: (see if I can remember this) I observe the rights of the oginal creators of their respected characters and am not seeking profit from this.

Also would like to give thanks to Azure Inu for the review.

Enjoy!

* * *

**Here Today**

by: Mauser

* * *

The tree had been choked at one point in its existence, perhaps, by vines that parasitically used the long eastward curving trunk as a crutch to feed off the sunlight and the rain. Years must have become prolonged while the struggle for photosynthesis waged on. And in the end, the host became the victor as the antagonist vines were cast down to the ground over the years, adding to the never-ending cycle of life.

But not with out leaving scars.

Aleutian never moved from the stone foundation where he stood, lost in his thoughts as he studied the odd looking tree. Yes, there were other trees around him that towered to the heavens, their branches twisting as if their symbiotic cells were attempting to become artist. But what made Aleutian stop, what made him stare, what made him reflect with this tree becoming the flashpoint of it all was the scars it bore. The vines had left deep trenches in the bark that curved around it like a spiraling staircase.

It was then that Aleutian wondered if it felt pain as much as he did.

* * *

"_What type of tree is that?"_ Locke asked Archimedes. In a way, the question was almost directed to himself. He'd never ventured to this part of the world and the nature that inhabited it was alien but yet breathtaking to him. To their immediate left towered a five story cliff face that seemed to act as a border to an ancient grass covered switchback that descended the mountain which they were traversing. Past his son and the mesmerizing tree lay the continuing rolling summits of its brethren in the far off distance, overcast by a light haze that was more like lingering fog. To the right, a shrub and boulder littered valley that only stretched at least a quarter mile across before it tackled an adjacent mountain had more curvature to it. Rain had recently soaked the area before the sun came out to dry the land. The red, grey and tan face of the vertical ridge had darkened from the water, only leaving traces of its former, dry glory as minuscule patches.

But even with the winding path up ahead being clear of trees, there still lay a few on the right side of the ridge: one in particular grabbing Aleutian's, and now Locke's attention.

"_A mountain maple I presume. Considering the small size of it and the triple shaped leaves, I can't be too far off. But it looks to have stray from its growth patterns, mate,"_ Archy replied after a long musing.

A shallow nod. _"But it's still prospering, no?"_

"_Yes..."_

Locke let a smile form on his face. "Can you see inside of the tree, Aleutian?" he asked, hearing Archy's voice trailing off in his thoughts.

His son turned his head over to the right, showing a hint of agitation from losing his tranquil stare of the tree. It faded just as fast as it came, however his scars seemed to have never flinched as they seemed to have brightened in contour thanks to the late-morning sun. The air was still. Silence had gripped anything that was machine, replaced by calls from birds and droplets of water that fell from leaf to leaf. Thick white clouds littered the blue sky, never showing a hint of the dark grey anger of the rain that had once plagued the valley, leaving nothing more than a glimmering emerald paradise.

A sparrow found a place to rest on a high limb of the maple tree. Its chirping song filled Aleutian's ears and made him glance up, all the while his father's question still lingered in his mind. Somehow he felt the urge to smile and he did. With it came the wind, rifling through his dreads like gentle fingers that also caressed his face, fur, and skin with the coolness of the breeze. There, he was glad he had his jacket off, tied between his back with the straps of his pack.

The moving air was ecstacy to his lost soul.

Reaching up he placed his right palm on the tree. He channeled his will power to his sight and fought to see past the blackness that consumed the image in his head. Tracing up the edge of the lightly grey trunk of the tree, he saw the same image that he would see with his natural eyes attuned to his surroundings, but he couldn't see the inside of it. Not this time.

"_Have I really strayed from myself?"_ he asked the sentient being inside of him. _"How can I not see the rings of the..."_

His realization snapped his hand back from the rough bark. He tried to hide his feelings, tried to bury them in the deepest of crevasses of his heart.

But he failed.

The mental thoughts seemed to float on the wind, finding their way across the fifteen foot void to Locke. And there he saw the image of the premature egg in the womb. Angish of the sight took hold of his heart, wondering if Aleutian had peered deeper into it, finding if he had a son or daughter in the egg as it laid nestled in his equal. Locke shook his head invisibly, putting away the hurtful image of an innocent baby lying helplessly in the womb as the mother died.

With his thoughts back to his son, he took the needed steps to close the gap. "Don't be afraid," he said evenly, "you still can see. I believe in you that you can."

Aleutian felt his father stop right behind his shoulder, but he still kept his eyes closed. "I can't see anymore..."

"...No, it's not that you can't...it's that you don't want to," Locke shyly whispered. "Don't let images from the past make the present's become far removed. You can do it, Aleutian...just don't be afraid."

"_Fear is the killer of a trained mind,"_ came Lopper's words that echoed to Aleutian at that instant. _"If thou fears, then thou is dead; physically and spiritually."_

"He's right Aleutian. Don't let fear tramp over who you are," added Locke. He could see his son's agitation from having his thoughts picked out of the air. "Touch the tree; see through the darkness. Project light where it has never been shown. See how it lives."

Aleutian stuck his hand out but hesitated to touch the maple tree. He was about to draw it back and continue on his way when Locke reached out with his three fingered gloved hands and pushed his over Aleutian's, being mindful to not get stuck with the curved spikes of his son's day old gloves.

"_See_, Aleutian. You can do this. I have faith in you...like your mother always has."

He trembled with sadness from his father's words, only finding darkness within his sight.

"It's pitch black...just like my heart!"

With his left hand, Locke forced it around the locks of his son's head, whispering to calm him: "See, Aleutian; close your eye's and see. Wish for light...wish for warmth."

Locke mind-meld with Aleutian. Archimedes brought himself over from Locke's shoulder and pressed two of his arms on Aleutian's cranium. At first the sight was blackness to them, like staring into a starless night sky. Even over the grip of his father's hand around the back of his head, Aleutian fought to concentrate.

"I can't!" he protested.

"Yes you can. You are not defeated in life and you are not defeated here today. Your brother has shown you this. Believe in yourself, Aleutian! For your family believes in you."

Aleutian kept staring into the blackness of the tree, fighting hard to see something more than that. He knew what to look for, but the image was never coming to him.

"Ask for it, lad," Archy suggested somberly.

Blue soon replaced darkness; however in a blur.

"Yes...that's it. Open your sight to it," urged Locke in a whisper.

And then came the trickle of light, spanning the ringed spectrum image of the wood to Aleutian, Locke and Archimedes.

"There...was that so bad?" asked Locke into the young Guardian's ear.

Aleutian fought to expel a relieving sigh. "...No. I can see again, father. I thought it was all lost in me."

Locke gently shook his head as he kept his eyes shut. "You've never lost it, Aleutian. You've just kept it away from you because of the pain you feared. Don't let your unborn child stop you from being who you are. Don't let your equal's death linger in your heart while others need it."

Aleutian felt the urge to cry but he kept his sight fixed inside the tree, tracing and counting the rings with the circular picture he witnessed. Somehow it seemed sharper, well tunned but with the same blurry circle that limited his overall view of it.

"The tree is only a sapling, dad."

Locke could hear the flex in Aleutian's vocal cords; sadness mixed with joy. "Yes, it is. How many rings do you see?"

"Seven...what does that mean, father?"

Locke smiled briefly, for he was teaching his son again. Something he never thought would come so soon and be this easy. "It means that it's probably seven years old. Rings sometimes are formed when the tree speeds up its growth cycle due to climate change. Sometimes it slows down as well, leaving larger gaps between the rings."

Aleutian followed his inner-sight up the tree, tracing the seven rings as a pathway to the top. When he reached it, he was met by sunlight that almost blinded him with white-out in his head. Changing the spectrum with just a mere thought, he could see he was looking inside a leaf. Shifting the image down towards the ground, he saw the sight of him and his dad down below with Archy resting between them.

"Can you see further?" Locke inquired graciously.

"What do you mean?"

A shallow breath. "I mean can you magnify your sight to see the smallest of objects?"

"I don't know...I've never tried."

"So what's keeping you?"

"Umm..." Aleutian trailed his voice off that he knew was going to bring an excuse that wouldn't be feasible as an answer. Instead, he pushed himself to see closer. It took a long while for him to concentrate harder, feeling for a brief moment that his task was a waste of brainpower.

But the result proved other wise.

He felt like he was gliding again in the absence of his winged machine. Green fibers gently flowed up as his inner-sight magnified, seeming as if he was falling. He urged himself to see deeper into the make up of the leaf, passing round materials that he knew where arteries or something. Being curious now, he picked one and glimpsed inside of it. There he was baffled along with his dad: green cells were rushing through what looked like slim tributaries that either merged into one another, or branched out. Aleutian had seen images of this only as pictures in a crudely made textbook when he was at the schoolhouse with the children of Mathias' crew. He never once fathomed that he would see the miracle of life with his own sight.

And for Locke it was a spectacle to behold. "I never knew cells could travel this fast in a tree."

"Neither have I, father," gasped Aleutian. "This is truly amazing. I never knew I could do this. I just...took it for what it's worth."

Locke smiled broadly as he took his hand away from Aleutian's, still having his other around his son's head. "We never take things as they are, son. Your brother believes in looking at things from outside the box; seeing if other possibilities exist to achieve a goal. It's something that I had instilled in him and he uses that teaching like a religion."

Aleutian let that digest in his mind as he backed away from the maple tree. Sighing, he took a long look at the ground. "I did too at one point. Why I never came back home. I saw the problem and I tackled it the best way I knew how."

"I know Aleutian...that's what makes you and Knuckles, Guardians."

"...But I don't feel that way, dad," Aleutian admitted evenly, "I mean...I feel that I–"

"–Abandoned your people?" Locke asked rasing a brow.

Aleutian sunk his head down, turning away from his father. "Yes," he finally sighed in defeat. Taking in a deep breath afterwards, he slightly turned his head back to his father and took the first steps of admitting his pain.

"I...I never knew how much it hurt, father, until I saw my brother; grown and... and had become a better echidna than me." Aleutian forced himself not to cry, mustering his free-will to continue on. "He made me question my duties only after I questioned his. He made me remember dad...just seeing him full of pride and devotion, he made me remember..."

"...What you said you would do for him?" Locke affirmed.

Aleutian somberly nodded. "Yes. My duties to him and our kind that _I_ pledged to do. Not some blood-right linage...but me! My promise!" He shuddered hard, mopping his head around to the north, shielding his tears from his father; "My promise!"

Locke waited after a few hard shunts of tearful cries came from the back of Aleutian. He waited before he brought the real truth to him. "She wants you back, Aleutian."

A curt shake of the head. "How do you know?"

Locke didn't answer that question. "She wants her equal back. She wants her Guardian back."

"...HOW DO YOU KNOW!?" snapped Aleutian along with his tempered body and a pointed finger. "You never once met her, and you never once cared about her!"

Locke stiffened his face to match his son's. "I do now! Isn't that enough for you?"

Aleutian dropped his hands to his side while staring down his father. "No...she's dead now thanks to you and Archimedes! I only have her as a stone and portraits..."

"...and _your_ dreams!" Locke seethed out. "Don't you ever blame us for her death, son. We may not have done what we were supposed to do for you...but don't go blaming us for her death! You know that charge is as hollow as your hatred towards me now." Locke dropped his voice down, soothing the anger inside him. "I am willing to make things right with you. I admit that it took your mother to slap me straight to focus my true duties to you...but I am willing to ease our differences here today, and tomorrow, and however long it takes. Like your mother, I want my son back as well.

"And so does _your_ soul-equal."

Aleutian dropped his head down to the ground, waiting for his tears to fall to his feet. "I don't believe she wants me back...after what I done to her. After what I haven't done for her."

"Son," Locke said in stern sympathetic tone, "she called to me this morning with your name on the wind. She wanted me to see your dreams--"

Aleutian fired back with a snap of his head, "No! You wanted to see my dreams!"

Locke shook his head with a grimaced face. "Then why did she apologize for you? Why did she plea for me to help you?" He could see his words were having the effect he knew would come. Aleutian was starting to gape. "And why did she scream your name out in end as she faded from you?" Locke held a short pause before he answered for his son. "Because she wants her soul-equal back."

Aleutian kept starring at the ground, his face shimmering from his tears that rained down over his long scar.

"So where do I begin?" he finally asked in defeat.

"You need to let go."

Aleutian stood there, shaken to say the least. "No...I can't! Not to her..."

Locke took two long strides to his son, grabbed his right hand and thrusted it back to the bark of the tree.

"Do you believe _that_ even when you now believe in yourself?" Aleutian's sight flashed to the insides of the tree again over his father's words. "Look at the life that is thriving around you, Aleutian. We are here...we are here among the living as the living."

Locke then guided Aleutian's hand to his own chest. "Do you see your heart beating?"

A quick hesitation before a tearful nod. "Yes, father."

"Then you are here among the living! Your heart still pumps free in this world and there are people who depend on it to keep beating for their very lives. Your family...your true family depends on your heart to beat freely without being burdened with the dead." Locke swallowed and shifted his gaze. "You need to let go, Aleutian. For our sake."

He stared down at his bare chest, seeing his heart beating as he felt it. Clearing the image, Emi-La's face flashed to him in return: her textures, her love, her kisses; Aleutian didn't want to leave them in the furthest parts of his mind, feeling he was replacing her in the dark; in the cold over him. _"I'm not going do that! Not now...not ever!"_ he cried out to himself

Turning around, Aleutian took a deep sigh and found the motivation to march away from his father. With his face grimacing over the frustrations of the decisions he didn't want to make, he started to feel alone once again with his painful thoughts. And for some reason this time...he hated it.

* * *

A shallow cough shifted Doctor Hartman's gawking attention to the door behind him. What professional mind set he still possessed was expelled when his hazel eyes fell on Lar-Na's immaculate figure.

"How _is_ he!?" she asked bluntly, finding the brown echidna's eyes were venturing lower than she wanted them to go. She bleed a smirk when he hesitated.

"Um...stressed: his pulse rate is through the roof and he's not even _awake_! I was about to check it again until you honored me with your..."

"...I'm taken, hotshot!" Lar-Na growled, smothering Hartman's cordial comment without any hint of remorse. She caught his gaze wondering passed her bare naval once more and there was only one Echidna who could undress her physically and mentally. That was her Field Marshal. Something she let him take full advantage of before she let him sleep off the night's expedition.

She was still sore.

But with her estrogen suppressed, she had to check on Wesson. "How long has he been out?"

Hartman turned back to the _thing_ that was his patient. "Two hours," he answered after a quick check of his wrist watch. "Is there any suggestions you can give me on how I should examine him? I'm honestly afraid to touch him."

Lar-Na walked across the room and stopped at Wesson's bedside, showering him with some resemblance of caring from her green eyes. Like her husband, she too had a soft spot for the young sergeant, however, still caring for the rest of the detachment who were hustled together back on Angel Island. Just more so for Wesson. Especially after what he accomplished that night.

She noticed the medical staff could've done more than just push an I.V. into his natural hand. Nothing else had been done, saved for striping away his pride and dignity along with his boots and BDU's for a hospital gown. Even for her it was degrading to see him how he was.

Letting her face show her indifferent thoughts, she finally replied, "Just keep fluids in him and he'll be fine."

"Fine!? His heart rate is 'ah hundred and fifty! And he's _out_! How old is he by the way; that could be a great help!?" Hartman thought he knew the answer just by looking at the Legionnaire, but his correction was about to send him in a fury of medical rants.

"Seventeen," Lar-Na answered with an exaggerated sneer.

"Seven...he's gonna have congestive heart failure by the time he's thirty!"

"He'll be lucky if he can see that age, Doctor."

The way she said it, cold and unforgiving as her jaded eyes never left Wesson's sheeted body made Hartman retreat his observations. Everything about his patient seemingly came clear, although his conclusions were still clouded by his lack of understanding of the technological replacement parts that littered Wesson's body. Sure he has attended to patients with bionic limbs, mostly from construction workers who didn't observe the think-safety rule before severing their arm off with a saw. But Wesson's substitutions for skin, fur, arm, and eye sent Hartman's ten years of medical practice back to pre-med, wishing that he'd paid more attention in shop class rather than daydreaming about tooling around someone's insides.

Hartman found no need for a medical history. His tedious and very cautious examination after the routine insertion of the I.V. line told him more about the half cybernetic Legionnaire than Lar-Na needed to elaborate–that was if he found the courage to ask her. Searching for a pulse on what was left of the boy's throat, Hartman ghastly discovered Wesson's left carotid artery was removed, replaced by what felt like a plastic tube that infused with the adjacent artery under the skin. Even there he couldn't find a pulse. The right side didn't fair any better, however; noticing that he was ripped to pieces overtime and engagements. What was odd, though, was Wesson's bionic locks looked to have been voluntarily replaced with clean cuts just at the roots, making his observations that Wesson was willing to bleed frightening evident.

With his thoughts simmering in the long silence, Doctor Hartman let his curiosity ask his next question; one he was aching to know:

"What makes a seventeen year old become this stressed out and hardwired?"

Lar-Na held a short pause as she crossed her arms. "He's a recon scout," she replied evenly, her eyes never going out of focus from Wesson. "To tell you the truth, _hotshot_, my equal knows more about him than me. But to give you a bit of an idea about why he _isn't_ relaxed: his life is in a constant state of ending every time he gets a mission." She held another eery silence for Hartman to digest her remarks. "He's outlived his life expediency now for more than three months."

A long silence filled the bare white walled room that had little to offer for accommodations. Once again, Hartman found himself stupefied but trying hard not to show it. He could've stopped for Lar-Na's sake. She already knew that he, and ever one else in Albion, were nothing short of spineless fools. They carried on with their daily lives unchallenged, bowing to each other for greetings and on numerous occasions casting carefree smiles under what Lar-Na perceived their shield as a bubble surrounded by an unforgiving world. Their lack of resolve nauseated the deepest pits of her stomach.

That was until Stenson swaggered in to their sweat, though, smiling and smelling of battle. Before they engaged in their mating ritual–something they did after a successful operation– he elaborated what had transpired without flinching the gleam in his uncanny eyes. There, her reservations of Gala-Na and the rest of her pacifist bunch showed a glimmer of light that they weren't totally deprived of a guts. She then stopped herself from being consumed in a frenzy of laughter when Stenson told her about Wesson's message, but instead concentrated on her husband's worried face as he explained Wesson's run through Deer Wood Forest, telling her that the boy had changed.

She had to come and see for herself.

Hartman pushed his intimidated thoughts aside and resumed his duties. Remembering where he did find a pulse on Wesson's left wrist, Hartman placed two fingers over Wesson's artery and began counting the heartbeats while watching the seconds tick by on his watch...

Never in all his life had he seen someone snap their eyes open so quickly. Time resembled a photograph as Hartman stared for the moment he had at Wesson's cybernetic ocular, never minding the natural pupil. It was then that he thought fear was gripping his throat as he never thought it felt so cold. But with panic heighten his senses, Hartman found it wasn't fear but Wesson's bionic hand crushing his windpipe without so much of a strain showing on his snout. The pain and lack of air commanded Hartman's hands to rush up to his throat, all the while his knees began to buckle under the immense weight of his overloaded senses.

Lar-Na waited a half-second more before she stopped Wesson from ripping out Hartman's windpipe, knowing full well that the sergeant was acting on instinct rather than pure impulse to kill him. "Sergeant Wesson, _EASY_! You're not in the field; you're in a hospital!" she snapped, feeling justice had been served.

If it wasn't for Lar-Na's overbearing voice filtering into Wesson's psyche, another single thought from his adrenalin charged mind would've killed Hartman where he kneeled. Releasing him with a snap of his mechanical fingers, Wesson watched the doctor finish his journey to the tiled floor, Hartman finding air never felt so good to breath.

Casting the sheets aside, the Legionnaire slapped his bare feet on the floor beside the gasping echidna and scoured the room with his burning eyes that projected his hollow temper. Soon, his senses filtered back into his swirling head, finding what was left of his fur body becoming chilled in the cold air with his right leg becoming tight with pain.

"Where is she?" he finally said, his gritty voice making the room colder.

"Where's who?" retorted Lar-Na, finding herself stepping closer to Wesson's right side.

"Nata-Le!" Wesson seethed, shifting his piercing eyes down to the white coat of Hartman. "Where is she, cretin!?"

Hartman didn't answer. He was still massaging his throat while trying to breath.

Something inside Wesson told him to take his temper to the next level. He couldn't fathom as to why his voice in his heart told him to pick the stunned doctor off the ground, but in an instant, he had his bionic hand wrapped around Hartman's lab coat and lifted him six inches off the ground.

"Where is she and _don't_ let me ask _again_!"

Lar-Na gently placed her calming fingers down on Wesson's furred shoulder that supported his replaced arm. "Stand down, Wesson," she said in a calming voice, one that the young sergeant hadn't heard since he met her.

He didn't flinch.

"Stand _down_, Sergeant Wesson. Please obey my request." She waited and yet still nothing.

"Is she alive?" Wesson finally asked in a trembling voice, his crimson eyes never leaving Hartman's petrified face. "Did I succeed?"

"Yes," replied Lar-Na with a lowered tone, "now put him down, Wesson. I still have as much say over you as Stenson does, so obey my _order_!"

It felt like an evolution had passed when Wesson finally broke his strained, burning face. "As you wish, Mistress." And with that, he lowered Hartman gently back to the ground and released him.

For a moment, Wesson stood rigid in silence, the fog of sleep never looming in his racing mind. Additional physical feelings soon replaced his mental anguish, telling him to look over his body for the pinprick in his hand that helped bring him back to reality. Never thinking twice about the pain nor the consequences, he pulled the I.V. needle straight out from the top of his hand, never grimacing from the pain. It wasn't long before his life's elixir oozed out and trickled across his fingers.

"I want to see her!" he demanded with resolve painted firmly on his face.

"What was that?" Lar-Na asked surprised.

Wesson's chest rose as he breathed in deep. "I want to see her now!"

Asking for reasons why ended right there. Instead, she lowered her jaded eyes towards Hartman, seeing that he was still trying to collect himself. "Okay, hotshot! Now you need to start answering questions."

Shaking his stunned head, he swallowed hard to clear his very sore throat and said, "She's upstairs, second floor, in orthopaedics or surgery last I heard..."

"Which _is _it!?" Lar-Na snarled. She hated indecisiveness–people got killed because of it.

Hartman began to stammer. "Um...surgery."

Easing her tempered face to one of sorrow, she tuned to Wesson. He never looked so eager to hit the door. "Get your pant's on, and I'll go with you."

Wesson gave a depressive nod, his seething sight never leaving hers. "Thank you, Mistress."

* * *

Lar-Na reflected how long it had been since she toured through a hospital that was still standing. Months she concluded, but she still hated the atmosphere that bellowed out from every room and corner; like death was waiting in the shadows for a helpless victim. Seeking sanctuary from her dreary surroundings, she kept her psyche entertained with Wesson's back. His bare feet slapped on the cold floor with his marching strides suppressed to a limp, perhaps, compounded with anxiety that he couldn't explain. But Lar-Na knew–she knew now what Stenson was so worried about. Something that would need to remind him that it was actually okay.

Within a few steps Wesson saw his destination to his right, the room number that Hartman finally divulged still burning in his mind. When he was about to round the door he stopped suddenly as a nurse with a surgical mask over her muzzle began to exit, pushing an aluminum cart that caught Wesson's attention in a yearning heartbeat. Atop it laid a bundled white sheet, purple stains lathering at an end that Wesson knew to be blood. There, he felt his heart sink even further as repressed images that he, himself, experienced only six months earlier; the phantom feeling of an arm that was never there, denial before anguish.

When he turned into the room, he could see Nata-Le was feeling just that.

Her shallow sobs filtered over the beeping of machines, her head turned away from her next challenge in life that she didn't want to face. Wesson couldn't tell if she was shivering from the cold environment that speared through the tan hospital blanket or that she was scarred and lonely. It must've been the latter as he became disgusted when he saw no resemblances of loving parents in the room. Instead, a masked covered doctor whose blonde hair had never seen a comb in months. Wesson knew the sight of a mom and dad all too well; he longed for it since he was ten.

Looking for relief from his emotions, he urged himself forward to her bedside, passing the red echidna doctor who ignored him but turned away for the door. Lar-Na eased her elegant figure as a door jam, stopping him quickly but with a disarming gaze. She said nothing as the physician took off his mask.

"She's one lucky girl. Are you her mother by chance?" he asked, his professional gaze never leaving hers.

"No," she replied, letting her eyes drift to the bare back of Wesson. "Is she going to get a replacement?"

"Tomorrow." A tired sigh; "But she needs to rest. I just wish her parents were here. They were supposed to be contacted by now, but no show."

Lar-Na bowed her head in agreement, feeling the warmth of the image in front of her that thawed the frigid room. "She'll be alright. I'm positive she won't be alone tonight."

Looking down upon her pink fur, Wesson's natural eye glistened in the florescent light as he found it hard to breathe over his withering emotions. Every whimpering pant she took made him want to do the same. But he held on. Swallowing hard, he desperately fought to discipline his voice. This time he was successful as his emotions won out in the struggle.

"Nata-_Le_?"

It took more than a moment for her to ease her head over, her cherry red face lighting up in horror as her eyes met Wesson's. It wasn't his fault that he needed the hideous cybernetic parts to go on with his life, but he felt it all the same. His face dropped with guilt as he raised his hands up to plea for calmness. "No...no. It's okay. Don't..."

He cut his whimpering voice short after see the emotional damage that he was trying not to cause. His face was far removed from the equation, however it was his cybernetic arm that was doing more harm than good. There he coward, turning away so he didn't hurt her anymore than how she was presently. But to his bewildered, frustrated mind, she reached over with her right arm and grabbed his replacement arm with a firm grasp. Her blanket and sheet draped down to the floor, exposing her bandaged nub that shot anguish to Wesson's aching heart.

A long silence drowned the room, Lar-Na finding herself watching intently as two totally different worlds were seeking understanding with each other.

"Does it hurt?" Nata-Le whimpered to Wesson, her eyes striking her question and her soul deeper into his.

A shaking breath. "Only when you're alone."

"Will I?" she asked tearfully, fearing that her friends and quite possibly her family might alienate her because she wasn't normal anymore.

Wesson could see the anguish she was fearing through her eyes. "I will be here tonight...and the next. You have my word."

"You will?" she sobbed in surprise.

A long nod. "I will."

Sniffing her nose, she let a tearful smile consume her red cheeks, letting silence give her thanks as she looked onto Wesson. The rest of the night he stood sentry by her bedside, watching her fall asleep without a word.

Lar-Na hovered by the door longer than she knew she needed to. It was there before she left, before her lungs began to choke again, that she realized what Stenson was fearing. They had lost Wesson...and she would let him stay lost.

* * *

Please review and tell me what you all think. More to come; I promise.

* * *


	13. Briefing

* * *

Wow...two chapters in one day. Not much to say about this one except about Aleutian's pistol. I had a little fun with Julie-Su telling her thoughts about it to Knuckles. Anyways...

Disclamer: I own nothing of rights of the orginal Sonic characters.

Enjoy.**  
**

* * *

**Briefing**

by: Mauser

* * *

Something strange projected from the disassembled pistol.

Julie-Su had the pieces laid out in a uniformed presentation fashion on the three drawer desk: the barrel laying in front of her, the recoil spring just above it, and the slide and slide release above that. But even as she scrubbed the insides of the polymer handle with something to the effect of a toothbrush, the dormant pieces in front of her seemed threatening all the same as if they were reassembled. She has worked with plasma blasters, fired them too, but they were never this simple but yet crude looking in design as Aleutian's pistol. And to bring it all on home, the weapon she was cleaning possibly still had the residue from the bullet that killed Blackjack just to save her pink fur.

Perhaps that was what made the parts seem so strange.

Placing the grip down to the left of the stack, she took a small glance over at Knuckles; he was still sleeping in "their" bed. Not by his own accord this time but orders from Sally. With it came Julie's instructions: wake him at fourteen-hundred hours and send him to Freedom HQ.

"_Fifteen more minutes and up and at em, Knux!"_ she said to herself with a smirk at her slumbering equal.

Turning back to the request at hand, she picked up a slender, eight inch stainless steel rod and screwed a copper brush to the end of it. This, along with white cotton patches, oil and solvent were found in the bottom of the wooden box like Aleutian had said. No one would've ever guessed that there was more to the case until they lifted the blue velvet tray to expose the cleaning kit. And then came oddest thing about the underbelly of the case: there was an instruction book on how to disassemble the pistol to clean it, which she had read.

But there wasn't anything marked on the booklet as to whom had manufactured the pistol, or at least a "thank-you for choosing" clause on the first page.

Picking up the barrel from the table, Julie observed a grey, worn ring about a half inch back from the threaded muzzle, indicating where the slide brushed up against the barrel during recoil. This was the first time that anyone, outside of Aleutian, had studied the pistol without it being in his hands.The grip was comfortable and balanced, almost tailored to any hand that closed its fingers around it. The recoil spring was still tight enough to possibly be punished with more use for years to come. But the barrel was a different story. The rifling grooves looked to have seen better days when Julie-Su peered down the nine millimeter hole towards the assaulting sunlight from the window. She could still see them, but she questioned how Aleutian managed to pull the shot off without having the round fly astray. Pushing the thought aside, she picked the rod with the bore brush on it, dipped it into the cleaning solvent that smelled like one of Eggman's newly manufactured robots, and rammed it through the back-end of the barrel. While she scrubbed the barrel clean, she gazed at the square breach where the round would be chambered. Their wasn't any clue of a serial number anywhere; not even a desperate attempt to file one off.

When she finished cleaning the residue with a series of cleaning patches, she began to reassemble the weapon. Placing the newly cleaned barrel in her right hand and picking up the slide with her left, she gently positioned the barrel in the forward hole of the slide, making sure the square breach was pointing down and the locking grooves for the recoil spring were facing up. Then came the spring itself. She inserted the stubbed end in a small hole just above the barrel and placed the ringed end into a spot on the grooves. Finally, she placed the slide into position on the railings of the handgrip and racked it back just enough to insert the slide release lever that held everything in place. Making sure everything would function when they needed to, she racked the slide back twice over, navigating the trigger back that snapped the hammer to the rear.

Standing up from her chair, Julie-Su turned to the east wall and brought the sights of Aleutian's pistol up to a dark board with both of her hands firmly grasping around the handle. Placing her left leg forward and her right just to the rear, she lowered herself gently at the knees, bending both of her elbows towards the ground and tucking them up against her rib cage.

There was indeed something strange, something sinister about Aleutian's pistol that somehow seemed to have turned her on. It felt very comfortable in her gloved hands; almost too comfortable.

Moving her gloved, twin fingers down from the slide to the trigger, she let her breath halfway out...and gently pulled it back.

_SNAP_!

"_It's too easy with this gun...way too easy! Who ever made it, designed this thing so the shooter can make the decision to pull the trigger and worry less about control. _

"_So where does that leave the control over the shooter?"_

Turning the pistol over on its left side, Julie-Su reached up with her hand and racked the slide back once more. The crisp mechanical action showered the room with its sound as the slide chambered on an empty magazine well. Again, she dropped into her shooting stance and worked the trigger.

_SNAP_!

"What do you think?"

Julie-Su turned to the bed where Knuckles was halfway on his back, staring up at her with his purple eyes. "It's light," she explained after shifting back to her target. "I honestly thought it would be heavier just by the looks of the construction, but it's light."

"I meant how it _feels_, Julie?" Knuckles said with a weary chuckle. It faded when Julie-Su's expression went uneven.

"Scary. Even for me." She aligned the three white squares of the iron sights that formed an even picture against the dart board. She brought the double-action trigger back again.

_SNAP_!

"Why does that one scare you over your's?" Knuckles asked with an even voice.

Julie raised her right brow when her observations finally came after a moment. "Power. Something with this pistol has a feeling of power that I fear...even for myself." She sighed, dropping the pistol to her side along with her eyes. "I just wonder if I can turn it off before..."

A curt pause followed. "...What?" Knuckles finally asked just above a whisper.

"Before I kill a lot of people. Especially with that extension on. I could really get lost with it then."

Knuckles breathed out a troubling sigh. Rolling over and out of bed, he moved across the floor to his equal on his bare feet. "Never thought we'd have a monster living under our bed."

Julie-Su nodded as she studied the large frame pistol in her hand. "Your brother has total discipline over himself, Knuckles. Possibly more so than your hothead." Knuckles rolled his eyes at her. She smiled. "It's true!"

"Really, how does he have total discipline when..." He stopped himself for say something that he knew he would regret.

But Julie answered for him anyways; "Because he stopped after Blackjack. If he totally lost it with the power he had in his hands, he would have finished the job for Eggman."

Knuckles lowered his gaze to her grey boots and gently took her left hand. Rubbing it, he said: "Put it away...and make sure we lock the door before we go."

* * *

Geoffrey St. John took another hard look at the intelligence briefing he had in front of him on the table. Shifting his attention-to-detailed eyes to the main screen of Freedom HQ, he was satisfied that everything was in order to be presented.

"Right!" he curtly huffed to gain the attention of his _volunteered_ audience. Sonic and Tails sat beside each other at the forward table to St. John's right. Twan and Bunnie holding the rear table down behind them. Knuckles on the opposite side, Julie-Su multitasking her attention to the Skunk and her equal's arm. Uncle Chuck and Rotor focused their dreary attention towards the two echidna's backs, fighting the urge to sleep. And standing next to St. John; Amadeus, Merlin, and Princess Sally.

The room fell silent before Sally spoke: "Okay, yesterday we intercepted a message with a new encryption tied into it." Sonic caught the snideness in her voice. "I commend Uncle Chuck, Rotor and Nicole for losing sleep to crack this."

A few low cheers and nods circulated towards Chuck and Rotor.

"But...needless to say it hasn't been cracked yet," added St. John. "So far we only have one word tied into this and that's _Chameleon_. It could mean a code named operation, a diversion in the message, or a hidden base–"

"–Which we think we've found!" General Prower announced beside him. "Thanks to Rotor, a pass-over of the area from a satellite has come back with a nice image of a compound of sorts. Commander?"

St. John went to console and pressed a few buttons that brought up the image of a large open area. Different shades of black and white contrasted a verity of farm fields. In the center, a large fenced off compound that had what appeared to be guard towers: four on each corner and two positioned between a west facing entrance. Centered in the square were twelve large huts, divided closly together in a four by three square.

Sally spoke as she handed out the photos to the tables: "We honestly don't know what is going on here. We could only get one pass without Robotnick getting alerted to our suspicions, and St. John and I have been going over this as much as we can."

Knuckles picked up one the photographs, studied it and pointed to the huts. "This looks like a camp or something..."

"...like a concentration camp?" suggested St. John. "Yes, we've thought that over, but we haven't seen anything that resembles life other than Eggman's blokes."

"...And that's why we are sending you out to have a peek at this place!" Sally added with a nudge in her voice.

"ME!"

"Don't worry, mate. Sonic and Antoine are going with you," St. John added with a smug grin.

"HIM!?"

'Twan festered in his seat; "I'm notz ze complete buffoon az you takze me..."

"...not you, 'Twan! HIM!" Knuckles scoffed while pointing his left mit at Sonic.

"Yea...I know I'm loved!" bolstered the Blue Blur, interlacing his hands behind his head.

"What's the problem with Sonic?" asked Amadeus, smiling the whole time.

"One word," St. John began with a sneer, "im-_ma_-ture!"

Sonic brought a disarming smile across his face. "I wouldn't go that far, Geoff."

"Ehh, there are days, Sonic," Sally joked. Small snickers flourished in the quiet room at that moment. "Anyways..."

"...right, Princess!" St. John festered as he got back on track. "You three will be surveying this place and THAT IS ALL! No actions, no fights, no blowing up stuff! Just a quick look-see and get out."

Sonic jolted his head back. "What? You mean we can't smash this place up?"

Amadeus shook his head; "Not this time, Sonic. We need to be cautious with how we charge into something with fresh new intel. We've already lost one tool and that's reading the messages. Next could be the satellites with jamming signals, or Robotnick blowing the birds out of the sky." Prower could see Sonic nodding inwards in agreement. "Just find out what's going on there, and get back. Afterwards we'll sit on the information before we make our move."

"Sounds good to me," Knuckles confirmed. "How we getting there?"

"_Boogie_!" replied Sally. "Twan...make sure you fly it low."

"Right, and when you get there," added St. John, "this field here to the southwest of the entrance seems to be a wheatfield or corn field, I'm not sure. But, there seems to be a small trench at the edge of the clearing. Good spot to cover in during the night to make your observations. You can approach from the south about six miles from the sight. That should be enough ground to cover without raising any suspicion."

Julie shifted her attention to Knuckles. "Are you taking your hover-board?"

He mused over the idea but then shook his head. "Nah, I'll be fine without it."

"Say..." Sonic blurted out, "why didn't you bring Espy in on this?"

St. John cleared his throat and looked towards Sally. She just nodded. "We picked up two messages this morning that have red flags all over them. One was sent on the old encryption ordering a patrol of Eggbots to survey a site that was ambushed in Deer Wood Forest."

"Wahoo! Rob-O is still handin' it to em'!" cheered Sonic.

"Sonic...that isn't the problem," St. John grossly pointed out. "A second message was sent out from New Robotropolis under the new encryption."

"Destination?" asked Julie-Su, her tone even like the soldier she was.

Another shake of the skunk's beret head. "East, but that's all. We lost it over Eggman's satellites this time..."

"...And the basic portion of the code has changed," observed Uncle Chuck. "Whole new math system we have to start figuring out just to find the whole sequence again."

"So why is he using one cipher and not the other?" asked Knuckles with a deadpan expression.

Sally bit her lip over her thoughts. "We don't know. And it's got us worried..."

"...Which is why we need Espio on stand-by," affirmed Commander St. John. "We might need him to do a recce if we can track another one of these messages to a different location. There might be something tied in with this _Chameleon_ project that Eggman only wants sent out with this new cipher. As of today, this has become top priority."

Silence filled the room.

Sally toured the nodding faces of the gathered Freedom Fighters. "Okay, get yourselves on the move. No time to waste. Oh, and Tails..." She waited when she had the kit fox's attention, "need you to stay here for a second."

The room became active as everyone found their way out of Freedom HQ. Bunnie followed Antoine towards the door but stopped briefly by Sally. "Anything for me to do, 'shug?"

"No Bunnie, not at this point." Sally could see the worry under Bunnie's brown cowgirl hat. "I'm sure Twan will be fine; Knuckles will make sure of it."

"Ah know, Sal. Ah'm just concerned with you, that's all. You look like you need a nap, sugar Princess."

Sally bowed her head and gave her best friend a kiss on the cheek. "I know...things haven't been easy lately." A long sigh, "I'll be fine, Bunnie."

"Okay, 'shug. Just wish you'd take it easy just for a day...tonight maybe."

Sally bowed her head with an even smile. "Plan too."

When Ms. Rabbot left after saying her farewells, all attention went to Tails.

"We're going on a trip, son," announced Amadeus.

"Where, dad?"

"About two hundred maybe three hundred miles from here. We have a mission from Elias and I volunteered you to be our pilot."

"Our?" asked Tails with a puzzled look.

"I'm going with you, nephew," replied Merlin, "catch up on some old times with your dad."

Tails grinned. "Cool, when do we leave?"

"Sooner than you think," replied Sally, "you'll be taking one of our other transports to survey a battlefield of some sorts. You're becoming an archeologist today, Tails."

"Looking for what exactly, Aunt Sally?" Tails asked eagerly.

"We don't know, son," said Amadeus, "that's why Merlin is coming along. He's going to be channeling his powers to see in the past."

Tails nodded his head with a broad smile. He was thrilled that he was going to be spending quality time with his relatives on a mission. "So why does Elias want us to search this place out."

Miles' father lowered his head but kept a disarming face all the while. "It's for a friend."

* * *

She had never felt so out-of-it in her life. Confusion seemed to constrict her senses as she laid on a metal tabletop. Or at least that's what Kripta believed she was on.

Fighting the heavy notion to sleep, she desperately tried to force open her eyes. Everything projected as a hypnotic blur at first. Lights flickering here and there in the cold darkness that licked at her skin. She blinked once–twice, asking for her tears to comeback so they could soak her dry eyes. The last thing she attempted was to swallow away the cottonmouth that seemed to torture her more than the cold metal pressed against her back.

"Chriisstiaann..." she breathed out. Beeps and mechanical moans invaded her ears. Her vision briefly adjusted to the mild darkness before grogginess required her to shield her pupils.

She began to fall asleep again.

A vocal beep from beside her broke the defense of her lids, snapping her eyes open as her heart began to steadily race. How long was she out again? She didn't know; she couldn't tell. The dark room had nothing in the way of windows with which to view the outside world. However if there was, a good portion of her sight was concealed by machines with display screens that showed calligraphy that seemed like an alien language to her. Wires fell from them like hair strands. She let her mind become entertained as she traced the wadded maze with her dazed sight. Somehow they traced up to her, connecting to points on her body that she couldn't see due to a white sheet over her naked body. She knew she was. The chill cut through her and the thin cover like a razor.

When she danced her fingers around on her left hand, she felt a painful tension coming from her wrist. She was surprised that she could even lift her hand at all as she brought it over to her blurred gaze. To her horror, multiple needles with clear and purple cords attached to her hand and laced it like a glove.

Her heart seemed to want to escape from her chest as terror tried to tighten it's clutches around it. She tried to raise up but found resistence around her ankles and abdomen. She was shackled to the table.

_BEEP_!

She shot her head over to the left upon hearing the piercing sound in her throbbing head.

"ANZY!?" she forced with a quivering shrill.

Between the obstacles of machines that separated them by mere feet, her brother laid motionless on a surgical table. Tears finally started to flow from her eyes as she fought the restraints and her drug induced stupor, trying desperately to reach her brother.

She lost. Settling back down in defeat, Kripta sniffled in her anguish, weeping.

"_Where's my Christian?"_ she begged in her tears. _"Where are you..."_

The shunts of a heavy door opening from behind her filled the heavy, rank air. She slowed her breathing, battling herself to make them more shallow as she listened for footsteps. Nothing...only the beeping of machines and...

...Something moved in the shadows of the poorly lit room, spiking her fear and heart rate to unmeasurable heights. Kripta still kept her head pointed towards Anzio as her eyes shifted around to see through the darkness. If it wasn't for the sedation that the machines used, which enlarged her pupils, she wouldn't have been able to make out the large silhouetted figure that skulked towards Anzio.

She fought to discipline herself; fought not make a sound ,but something in her adrenaline charged mind told her to cry out to her brother:

"ANZY!"

It stopped over the body of her brother. She concentrated her sight with all the will power she could put forth. The thing towered over Anzio, its shoulders wider than the bulkiest of humans and a mid section that could take on a large truck without breaking a sweat. There were no lines of contrast, for she couldn't see them between the dark lighting and her hypnotic state.

Red glowing pupils cut through the black, dung laden air like a switch had been flipped. Kripta felt every molecule in her body freeze in terror as the head of the monstrous figure stared deep into her eyes.

Heavy metal footsteps brought sound to the room. Keeping her panic stricken sight on the pair of crimson eyes in front of her, a shiny glimmer filtered through her peripheral vision of the walking skeleton of the single ocular tech-bot. It strode like any other android would from its physical characteristics, stiffened steps without any notion of a swagger. When it stopped, it looked as if it might topple over on its face. It didn't, however, but instead it snatched a thick cable from a machine that hovered beside Anzio like a television on a metal supported tray, and hooked it into the large figure beside it. Kripta never saw the movements that the tech-bot did next–sheer terror had won out over what little life she could feel in her shivering body. Whimpered cries seemed to be the only thing to soothe the anguish that tormented her.

The machine at her brother's side began to groan as the large screen began to flicker on. For a span of seconds that seemed to trail on for eternity, everything remained still.

Anzio's right hand began to twitch in Kripta's tear laden eyes. When his arm began to jolt violently, her body became enveloped with the urge to release her bowls right then and there, however, she felt helpless to do anything to stop the butchery of her brother.

Forcing herself to look away, she still felt her pupils burn when Anzio's body began to shake and shudder from the brief glimpse she caught of him. Her cries turned to mournful screams as the thumping of her brother's body on the table replaced the silence of the room.

"ANZY–ANZY!" she screamed over her choking wails.

Rolling her head completely over from the painful sight of her brother being decimated by a machine, Kripta found her aching pupils adjusting to blotches of green, tan and black on something large and smooth. She felt her heart jump to her tightened throat when a hand snapped open six inches in front her grimacing face, never witnessing the long dagger extend from the wrist as panic took hold of her consciousness.

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Lot of diologue in this one, but hey, figure you all want something else besides sadness for once. How about fear...did the last section grab you? I've never read anything horror based...seen it, but writing it has been a bit of a challenge.

See you next chapter.

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	14. Hidden Honors

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Greetings. Wheew...working overtime tonight. Anyways, another chapter with father and son bonding. Not as sad as some previous chapters, but thought provoking in some areas. I ended up putting more diologe in here to strengthen character to character interactions. We rarly have seen anything that protrays Locke and Archimedes together as "they" reflect on their past. I also ended up bring more to light about Lopper. I promise, the next book, I will have that cute, adorable lop that I wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley during the DAY!

Other than that:

Disclamer: I observe the rights of the orginal creators and their characters.

Enjoy.**  
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**Hidden Honors**

by: Mauser

A hard grunt filtered up to Locke's ears, snapping his trance from the breathtaking view that he was consumed in, and rolled his collective thoughts back to the forefront of his psyche. Taking a swig from a canteen and a bit from an energy bar that was an added bonus from the meal kit he had devoured just moments ago, he stole another glimpse at the rolling mountain landscape before adjusting his stare at Archimedes' back. They were perched high on a flat mountain shelf, Locke sitting cross legged, waiting for his son to defeat his next challenge. But with another hard grunt, Locke could only sigh.

"You know you didn't have to take the 'rise from grace' thing literally, Locke," muttered Archimedes, standing at the edge of the plateau and looking down at the two hundred foot drop.

Locke chuckled then asked after a moment; "Where is he?"

The Fire Ant stood his ground with his arms crossed, shaking his Aussie hat with his head. "Not even half way up, mate. The lad is really starting to struggle."

"So I hear," Locke exaggerated. "Is he still free climbing?"

A curt shake of the head. "Yep', bare hands and all. Should we tell him..."

"...Not yet. If he can free-climb it, let him. All the more power to him." Locke smiled for a brief second before his concern tainted it. "Just make sure your ready in case he falls. I don't know if he can glide."

"Another test when he reaches the top?"

Locke nodded albeit Archy couldn't see it. "Life is nothing but a test. That was something you taught me."

Archy let a smile fill his face. "I remember...I also remember a lad who was hard headed at times."

"And he still is, old friend," Locke said with a cocked head and a smirk. "Maybe I need a guiding Fire Ant back on my shoulder instead of my boys."

Archy still held his smile, but inward he was frowning at himself. "I think we all do at times..."

"EEHHHA!"

The elder Guardian took in a disappointed sigh from the last grunt and briefly closed his eyes with it. Standing up, he took careful steps to the edge of the cliff and peered straight down to the bottom. Aleutian was hanging over a thin ledge with his hands while balancing the balls of his feet on another that was smaller in length. "HOW YOU DOING, ALEUTIAN?"

His concentration broke when his father voice boomed down to him. When he attempted to glance up, his footing shifted on the loose rocky step just enough to let his feet slip off. He tried to prepare himself to rebound, but the bolts on his shoes added a little more weight than what he was anticipating. The strength of his right gloved hand wasn't enough -it slipped down the side while his left still clamping on, bearing his whole body weight plus his backpack and jacket.

"Locke...?" festered Archimedes.

"Just wait, old friend. Give him a chance to regain his footing."

Aleutian knew what a pendulum felt like at that dangling moment. He swung his right arm out and took a grabbing swipe for the ledge. He missed! Fear bolted deep into his heart when he felt his fingers start to slide away over the sandy shelf. Shooting his eyes down to the ground, the sight of the long drop to the boulder ridden ground shot courage back his skull. He thought about gliding down, but the past residual pain from his three healed ribs anchored in his mind, killing the idea before it was born.

With a heavy growl towards the ground, Aleutian kicked at the edge of the face and swung his body to the right, reaching desperately with a long gasp of air at the shallow ledge. When his fingers firmly clamped down on it, he quickly sighed out a harsh grunt. Shaking away the lingering panic, the young Guardian searched the jagged formation in front of him, placed his feet down on a sturdy ledge, and shoot his aching hand over to another stubby ridge off to his right.

Locke smiled broadly as Aleutian continued his ascend. "He wants it Archy...he wants it bad. His constitution for victory is still within him...and it's strong."

The hot dry air seemed uplifting even as the wind began to dissipate. A feeling of joy and triumph embalmed their bodies, revealing smiles on their faces.

"Should I tell him how simple it is?" quipped Archimedes.

Locke gave a hard affirming nod. "Yea! Show him the ropes with our tools."

Archy gave a two finger salute with both of his right arms and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. The moment he appeared over Aleutian's right shoulder, he still kept his proud smile even as Aleutian faced his strain at him.

"I'm kinda busy to have a talk, Archimedes!" he forced out as he pulled himself up and knifed for a small crevasse that barley fit his flat fingers. He resembled a leopard that was stalking its quarry on the face of the mountain, his limbs stretched aimlessly across the sheers.

"My place now is here on your shoulder...like it was with your father's and your brother's," Archy smiled.

Aleutian held his tedious position on the rocks as he beamed a puzzled glance towards Archy. "You mentored my father?"

"Aye...and I was suppose to mentor you when your reached your ninth season.

A sudden drop silenced all thoughts as Aleutian's left shoe lost traction against the rocky step. He scrambled his hands for a safer hold but his search came up short. He was stuck with no where to move, feeling the tingle of his endurance letting go.

Archimedes held onto Aleutian's locks as he took a glance down at the bottom; grinning all the while. "Your ready for your second lesson with me?"

"What second...there wasn't even a first!" returned Aleutian with a curt grunt.

"Yes there was..." the Fire Ant gingerly replied, albeit the situation wasn't. "You just never saw it that way."

Aleutian searched Archy's eyes for what he was getting at. "What was the lesson?" he finally breathed out.

"The meaning of duty, lad," Archy returned with a joyous smile. "You never knew how proud I was with you when you took that lesson and applied it to that girl who was orphaned..."

"It was a promise I made to her, Archy!"

"...and promises become our duties, young Guardian. Your written promise to your brother was and still is your duty. Your promise to her to return home is your duty. And your people is to your duty...promise them safety and your duty has become defined."

His aching muscles numbed with Archy's words. He was right...dead right. Aleutian felt so abstract from the past and his indifference with his father that he never clued into Archimedes plea to come home as a lesson in duty. A lesson in devotion. Or did it just wind up that way?

"_Our decisions effects our destiny."_

"She's right, lad," Archy murmured followed by a somber pause. "Your mom's lesson and mine has lead you to your destiny...back home to us."

Aleutian took his sight off Archy with a muffled frown and stared back up towards his new goal in life. "Even with what I've done?"

"Even with what you've done, lad. Think of it as...as your acts coming full circle. You just need to connect the ring."

Pressing himself against the jagged formations that he depended on as steps, Aleutian nodded his head with lowered eyes. "Is it all forgiven then?"

"It always has with me," Archy thoughtfully replied, "in fact...I was wondering if all is forgiven with me." Archy paused as he tried to collect himself. It was becoming hard for him. "I've always felt guilty of...letting you use your powers..."

"...DON'T GO THERE!" Aleutian bluntly seethed out. "You know how long it took to get that image out of my head...let alone the other nightmares I witnessed."

Archy wanted to step back in defense but the long drop he might experience stopped him. "Don't let it haunt you. Your families' rage has never brought pleasure to the likes of them. So don't let it haunt..."

"...But my powers weren't suppose to be used that way!"

"How do you know, Aleutian!?" festered the Fire Ant. "You had no Mobian idea how to use them, or even how or why you should use them. It was a fit of rage that expressed your feelings to them...and if I was in your boots at the time, I would've done the same."

Aleutian shook his head, trying to hold his weaking limbs together at that instant. "Don't give me sympathy about it."

"...okay then; how about this: when we get to the top, ask your father about your brother getting killed!"

"I know about that. Julie-Su told me..."

"But not the whole thing, lad."

Aleutian said nothing as he saw the sincerity in Archy's eyes. Taking in a long winded breath, he found the needed will to continue on, forgoing all pain he felt in his joints. He still felt sore from the previous day's fight –more so now thanks to his muscles building on the strained tissue-- but something told him to forget it and keep going. Possibly the long drop down looked less enticing than the top.

However determined he was, his limbs said otherwise when he stopped again, only ascending his matched height from his efforts.

"So are you ready for your next lesson?" asked Archimedes, driving his frightened voice lower in his vocal cords.

Aleutian inhaled a quip gasp: "Now! Y'know how far down it is from here--and _now_ you want to give me _a lesson_!?"

"It's eighty-seven feet and four inches from the ground!" Archy answered squarely.

"Yea, over twice the height of no turning back from the afterlife! So, do yea' mind if I keep going up in _silence_?"

Archy somehow balanced himself over Aleutian's shifting body, crossing his arms and throwing a mirthful look across his face. "You see your hands?"

He tried not to dart his eyes at them, however, his brain just had to look anyways. "See? I _feel_ em!"

Archy brought his voice down to a dead monotone: "Those spikes at the end of your knuckles aren't merely weapons, lad."

He squinted in confusion. "Huh?"

"...how's your strength?" Archy asked somberly.

"Well..." Aleutian started with a half gapping smile, "I knocked that Shadow back a few times, not to mention my brother. I guess I still have some..."

"...Good! Punch the mountain."

Aleutian gazed at Archy as if he was from another world. "I may be ticked off at it, but that's insane!"

"Okay...then you're really be going off the deep end when your endurance has had enough."

"VERY FUNNY, ARCHEE!" Aleutian barked with ferocity.

"Hey, I'm just stating the truth." A long pause. "And the air is better up there," Archimedes said with disarming voice, gesturing towards the roof of the mountain with a right arm.

Turning his eyes forward at the tawny colored rocks in front of him, Aleutian gently brought his right arm down and squeezed a hard fist by his temple. With the twin curved spikes fully exposed from his day old gloves, he smashed his hand into the mantel. Orphaned pebbles sprinkled down to the ground as Aleutian began to tug at his anchored fist. It didn't budge.

"Pull straight out to release yourself," instructed the even voice on his shoulder. "And don't release your fist or you'll slip out of your gloves."

Aleutian nodded in confirmations as he slugged the rock face with his left. Lifting himself up, he quickly gained his footing that propelled him higher. Then, doing as Archy instructed he released his right hand and punched the rock face a little higher. Lift; then another punch.

Thirty feet later and even with the help of his newly discovered claws, fatigue started to wear down on him. Looking down past the dangling sleeves of his jacket, he forced a smile over his burning arms and legs. Accomplishment had never felt this euphoric to him for many lonely years. Glancing smartly back up to the top, he could see his father awaiting his arrival.

"_I'm coming!"_ he whispered to himself.

"_I know..."_ returned Locke even though Aleutian wouldn't hear him. _"Just one step at a time for me. That's all I ask of you, Aleutian."_

Images invaded Locke's mind as a hard grunt from Aleutian seemed to trigger them. Nothing could prepare him for what his thoughts projected.

He could see Aleutian, standing with Emi-La like the photo that Lopper thrusted to him, happy. There was a strange resemblance of him and Lara-Le in the portrait, but that wasn't what he was focused on. Instead, Aleutian fighting; killing machines, Mobians, and quite possibly Overlanders alike. Then he envisioned images that possibly weren't far removed from past realities; his son receiving his scars. How he got them Locke couldn't fathom the real story, but his hypophysis that ran through his mind like a motion picture spelled it out. Knives, plasma bolts, shrapnel; that was all he could guess. Squeezing for happier thoughts, Emi-La suddenly came to mind. There, Locke smiled. Somehow he imagined his son meeting her, courting her, making love to her. Yes, the though was bawd in every sense of the word for a parent to think it, but a wondering mind found such forbidden treasures and had to see them for what they were.

And at the moment, he felt unconditional pride for Aleutian. He honestly didn't know the whole story of his runaway son, but seeing him now, mood swings or not, scars and all, Locke knew he had been through character changing ordeals. He looked at it as one might look at a soldier returning home from battle, his uniform decorated with medals that only told where the he'd been, but not what he had done. Aleutian had that much aura about him just by looking at his scars; a testament that he had seen and experienced horrors that Locke could only imagine in the deepest parts of his psyche.

His son, his baby boy had that aura around him that demanded respect even with all of his current faults. And Locke did...even as his father.

His numbing trance was whisked away as Aleutian's glove slapped the top of the plateau. Giving no thought to it, Locke leaned down and tried to give the last leg of the journey assistance. He was surprised when Aleutian swiped his hand away.

"Let me finish, dad," he grunted over his efforts.

Locke backed off smartly and held his hands flat to his sides. He saw that Archy wasn't anywhere to be found for some reason, or another. He shrugged the mystery off.

Sucking in a hard breath for courage and mustering the last of his endurance, Aleutian powered his legs up as he fisted his protruding knuckles on his right hand and slammed them onto the smooth shelf. With a flex of his biceps, he dragged himself across the bare rocks. And there he slumped his entire body on the warm surface, panting deeply as he fought off the cramps from his tired muscles.

"Winded?" Locke observed with a hollow show of disappointment.

Aleutian heard the flex in his father's voice and suddenly found the will to stand to address it. He swayed as he climbed to his feet. "That wasn't a cake walk, pop. I've never free-climbed before."

"Still, you shouldn't be out of breath from that," Locke frowned as he work feverishly hard to hide his smile. "Your brother tackled mountains far taller than this!"

Aleutian flexed his brows down as he stood straight, bracing himself before he stated the obvious. He was going to wish he hadn't:

"That's because your science proje..."

Locke reached across the one foot and three-quarter inch void and connected his right hand across Aleutian's scared face. The younger Guardian fell to the ground at the speed it took one to blink.

His mind swirled as he laid spread across the ground, only finding his conscious yelling at him to get with it and focus up. He did...and the sight of his father engulfed his wide blue eyes.

"I won't hesitate to beat that thing that's inside of you to a pulp!" Locke pointed his twin index fingers of his triple digit gloved right hand at Aleutian's birthright. "Don't you EVER degrade me, your brother, or your honor like that again! Not even in the presence of the air! Consider this a warning, pup!"

Aleutian's eyes fought to keep the burning stare but his old self told him to back down. When Locke saw his son cower, he let his anger dissolve and reached out with his right hand and waited for Aleutian to clasp it. A long moment passed before his son nodded his head and anchored his palm into his father's. With a quick jerk, he was back on his feet.

"Now, can you still glide? That was something I enjoyed seeing you do," Locke said with a hint of a mirth. The grimace he received shot disappointment to his heart in a split second.

"Last time I tried, I hurt myself pretty bad," Aleutian admitted with lowered eyes, rubbing his lower left rib cage as if it still hurt.

"Don't let it scare you from trying again..."

"...It's not that." Aleutian tugged on his half severed lock on the left side of his head. "I've lost my balance because of this."

Locke glided closer to Aleutian and placed his hand across his bare chest, feeling his formally shattered ribs with a caressing motion. "I'm sorry, Aleutian. I really am for you."

"Don't be. It's old wounds that I've learned to deal with."

Shaking his head, Locke didn't believe his observations. _"Then why are they still haunting you, my son?"_

"Lets check your balance," he said after a moments thought, "see if it lies there before we make judgements that aren't true. You ever seen an old airplane before?"

This produced a surprised look from Aleutian. "Seen? I've flown 'em, dad. That heap of junk in my basement is what's left of my ship!"

"What!?"

"Yea...I leased-the-farm thanks to some smooth flying bots and ended up losing my Corsair and breaking three of my ribs."

"Leased-the-farm?" Locke inquired at the meaning of the phrase.

Aleutian found the nervous itch that he had to scratch atop his forehead. "Yea, I only leased the place cause I didn't get killed to buy it."

Locke rolled his eyes over a half smirk. "Okay, make like an airplane, learn forward and balance on one leg."

Stretching his arms out like wings, Aleutian did as he was asked. For a moment he swayed in the breeze as he fought to stay level.

"Do you remember this?" Locke asked as he toured around his son.

"Yea, oddly enough I think this is where we left off."

Locke stopped deadpan before he managed to move again. "You still remember that?"

Aleutian breathed in deeply as he kept his balance over his burning limbs. "Among other things. Like, how you and I used to spare. The only other Mobian to ever wipe me like you is Lopper."

"Mmm Hmm. Okay, other leg." Nothing abnormal produced aside the jerkiness of Aleutian correcting his stance. "Wiped you, huh? How so?"

A light smile protruded across his muzzle. "One day at a time," he answered with a dead monotone. "Y'know, I thought I was a fighter, even after I left home. But after a month with him; nah...I was an amateur at best."

"How do you think I'll stand up to him?" Locke asked after giving his son a once more over.

Aleutian swallowed, wondering how his dad was going to take his thoughts. "He'll give you a run for your money once you find him. But you have to find him."

"Believe it or not, I actually found that out yesterday morning. I've _never_ seen anyone not spill their drink as they did a take down."

Aleutian shook his head. "Lopper is filled with surprises. You agree Archy?"

A whiff of smoke erupted on the ground beside the two. When it cleared, Archimedes' face was loathing from his repressed thoughts. "About to be stepped on by a five year old wasn't my idea of an introduction."

"Well, next time knock before you pop in. His kids are about as deadly as him."

"Kids? How many does he have?" Locke asked with great interest.

"Thirteen! Six boys and seven girls; eight if you count his wife, Alea."

Locke gapped at first but suppressed his stunned thoughts. "Is she dangerous as well?" Locke inquired evenly.

"Only if you count kindness as a weapon."

Locke chuckled for a moment before he moved on. "Alright, now lean over backwards and stick your left foot out and close..."

Locke didn't have long to wait as Aleutian followed his request. When he did, he fell flat on his backpack.

"You okay?" Locke asked as he quickly rushed over to Aleutian's side.

"I'm fine. I've taken worse before."

With a curt nod and a helping hand up off the ground, Locke balanced his son and instructed him to do the same position. Again, Aleutian fell flat on his back without a notion from his body as to why he couldn't keep his balance.

"What the hell?" the young frustrated Guardian asked. "I used to be able to do this on the Plunger in bad squalls."

Locke took note at the comment with great expatiations. It was the second time Aleutian reflected about his past without so much of grimace painted across his muzzle. "I don't know...try it again, but this time keep your eyes open."

Nodding his head as he stood once again, Aleutian took his backpack and jacket off and leaned back with his left raised in front of him.

He felt his balance start to fail and he seemingly couldn't do anything about it. This time, Locke grabbed him before he plummeted to the ground for the third time. They exchanged puzzled glances at each other before Locke asked something that he fear what the answer might be:

"Anything loud go off by your right ear?" He had never seen a face morph into utter horror like a change in the wind.

"Why you ask?"

"_Why so defensive son?" _he asked in the air. _"Archy?"_

"_It's best he tells you,"_ Archy admitted, finding a rock a few feet back to sit on as he watched father and son bond.

"Your semicircular canal seems to be damaged. It's the part of your ear that helps maintain your balance without seeing."

Aleutian held long silence. "So this is why I can't keep control of myself while I glide? It isn't my lock?"

Locke festered a smile as he lifted one of Aleutian's locks to see down his ear. "Nope. This is bad news, but, it isn't irreparable. It's along the lines of getting the _bends_ like a Mobian who needs a breathing apparatus to dive deep down in the ocean. If they come up to fast with out releasing the nitrogen from the blood stream in increments, they might get it. You probably haven't noticed it because you haven't been this high up or tried to glide back down towards the ground."

Aleutian gave a single nod at the assessment. "I understand that the bends is a terrible way to die."

"I've heard and seen worse than that, Aleutian. And I gather you might have as well." Locke waited for an reaction from his statement, but Aleutian looked on in silence. "So what caused this?"

There, he noticed he touched a nerve; something painful he noticed and he wondered if by accident he'd gone too far.

Aleutian's expression lingered with depression as he search for a question that he wanted to change the subject with. Even so, a concussion blast bellowed in the deepest portions of his mind, making him flinch as if it went off beside him. "You have no idea of the horrors I've seen. If it wasn't for me, all of Mobius would have suffered beyond the measure of pain."

"Really...ever wonder what you brother was doing during that time?"

"Yea, sitting at home and guarding it..." he lied.

"...wrong, Aleutian." Locke waited till he grabbed Aleutian's full attention with a quick tilt of his son's head before he continued.

"Your brother can be a little bit of a hot head..."

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Please review...all I ask.

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	15. Grave of the Sunflowers

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There is not much I can say about this chapter except I can't help but not think of the holocost when I planed and wrote this out. I always question as to why the jewish community didn't fight back, but on the other hand, I can see the conditions and treatment they forced under that can almost break anyone's will to fight. So let it never happen again.

I have to thank Zychoe32 for helping me with a paragraphhis style became a great help for me and is greatly honored.

Disclamer: I own nothing of Sonic and his crew and observe the rights of those who do.

Enjoy and please review.

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**Grave of the Sunflowers**

By: Mauser

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"What _is_ that smell?"

Sonic's face lathered with seemingly endless wrinkles as the stuffy, heavy air was laced with something that couldn't have been mistaken for rotten eggs for it was ten times as worse. It was bad enough that Sonic's eyes began to water.

"Sunflowerz don'z smell zhis bad," Antoine said in a low whisper. He had too. The camps's entrance loomed over the tops of the sunflowers.

"They're not supposed too, Twan." Knuckles eerily pointed out, putting his head on a swivel, checking for threats as he hovered low over his bended knees. He could see the end of the field through the narrow waving gaps of the tall sunflowers. Beyond that the double fence of the compound and the bots that walked the line, outside and in.

He rose up a few inches and skipped through the gaps between the sunflowers, only brushing his elbows on a few as he eased his way closer for a better look. Sonic and Twan soon followed, taking the exact same path as the echidna.

Knuckles stopped and hunched down to the ground, holding his breath as he scoured the field with his purple eyes. "Any ideas?" he asked with a disciplined voice.

"What--the smell or the smoke to the west?" Sonic put in, shooting his head over towards the late-afternoon sun. "I've got an idea about the smoke--the smell is beyond me."

"Yea'," breathed out Knuckles as he attuned his attention to the roving Eggbots, estimating the fence line was about hundred yards or more from the edge of the field. "That's something we need to check out after this place."

"Oui! But if zhat ze manufaczure facility way over zhere, zhan what'z zhis place?"

"I don't know, 'Twan," Knuckles grumbled.

"Well, let's take these snapshots and juice. This smell is making me want ta' hurl."

"Oui..."

A curt nod and a push gave Knuckles another low stride, traversing the obstacles of flowers with great attention to smoothness. Within a few yards, he caught sight of the trench that they were supposed to jump into. Something told him to just stay in the field, forgoing Sally's orders. _"Man that's rank!"_

The edge of the field saw a hastily made hump that seemed to mark as a border. Knuckles didn't really care what it was used for except cover from the patrolling machines. Across the hardened clay void was the fence line and the wooden constructed huts that never saw a stroke of water-sealant; three he counted, eyeing the furthest one pointing to the South. No movement from inside the fence except for two bots patrolling the line; one inside, the other out. Skulking around several of the tall flowers, Knuckles managed to leopard crawl to the clay knoll, concealing his upper torso, his eyes looming over the top. There, he watched the bots roving patrol patterns from his postion of safety. To his delight, he saw an opening when the Eggbot on the inside disappeared behind a hut, leaving its counterpart absence without a second set of sensors.

"I'm going for the trench," Knuckles quickly whispered, "it's only a few feet in front of us."

"Wantz ze camera?" Antoine asked in the same low whisper.

"I'll ask for it when I'm ready. This needs to be quick and smooth."

"Fair enough–got you covered, Red!" Sonic whispered with a thumbs up, concealing himself under the shallow hill.

Knuckles nodded and shifted his eyes back at the lone bot. Time seemed to lapse slower than it should as he attentively waited for the Eggbot to make a one-eighty turn towards the East. For Knuckles, it showed that they were guarding something from the inside instead of out.

"_There–finally!"_ Putting training into practice --thanks to Espio– he crawled over the incline and rolled over his stomach, shoulder and back, catching a final glimpse of the bot with its back turned before Knuckles dropped down into the trench.

Bracing himself to fall on the hard clay ground, it felt like a eternity to land with his back ready to take the brunt of it. He watched the ground rise up on both sides of him when his back and tail landed on something soft and mushy. His senses jerked him into a swirl of confusion from the grotesque smell, and the feel of fur and skin touching his. It wasn't until he looked down at the ground beneath him that his heart began to tighten and his stomach urged him to vomit.

Bloated Mobian bodies, a dozen if he could only count, their faces fixed to their last horrified, helpless expression, filled what Knuckles' quivering mind could only perceive as a mass grave; his left arm outstretched over a saffron furred female fox, her glazed over chocolate eyes staring out into oblivion with the same wide-eyed gaze as the echidna's.

"Get me outta here!" he barely forced out over his shattered senses.

"Knux, keep your voice down, bro..."

"Get–me–outta–_here_, Sonic!" Knuckles barely shrilled.

"Shutz-UP, echidna! Zhere's zomeone coming..."

Antoine inched his saber from its scabbard but never exposed the full blade. Grabbing Sonic's shoulder, he eased him back behind the cover of the sunflowers, still keeping low under the knoll.

"Stay put Knux!" sonic whispered, "get ready to crush some bots!"

Their faces were long, ready to accept death over their forced labors as their withered strides resembled their tired posture and ragged clothes. With his unbuttoned, sage colored short sleeve shirt deprived of a breeze to sway upon, the ferret worked the shovel in his black furred hands as a cane, shifting his squinting eyes behind him at a brown and tan chipmunk. Nothing was said between the two, fearing the pair of Eggbots behind them would permanently silencing them if they did. Nodding eyes were exchanged instead before the ferret turned his mopping head back towards the west.

Antoine could only find sympathy for the black and white ferret in the blistering heat, but not for his inactions. "I don'z see why they can't uze zhem shovels to knock zem down?"

Knuckles heard Antoine's whisper and knew exactly what was going on. Taking great care as he moved across the bodies, he alined himself against the side of the trench, lowering his torso down at the knees and digging his knuckles in the dirt. If he was spotted by the bots, they were in for a nasty surprise.

"COVER THE TRENCH, FUR-BALLS!" ordered a bot, leveling its cybernetic hand at the trench.

The ferret bowed his head and continued towards the mass grave. The chipmunk was right behind him, his shoulders seemingly carrying the emotional burden of the chore with his shovel.

"_What luck!"_ Sonic breathed out in his head, the two bots had hung back from the two Mobians –possibly threat assessing that the Furies might come back on them with their shovels.

The Ferret didn't have enough hands to hold his opened button shirt to shield his nostrils from the decaying bodies. Mustering all he could not to gag, he lead the chipmunk over to the edge and...

Two fierce violet eyes stared up at him from the grave, visibly shaken and ready to pounce with his anger leading the way. To their horror, it whispered to them:

"Don't say a freaken' word."

The chipmunk nodded, the ferret held his body rigid.

"Start covering the bodies, guys. Do it fast!" decried another whisper from the tall sunflowers.

The ferret expressed nothing in affirmation except taking his shovel and putting it to good use. Leaning over and piercing the ground, he slammed what little shoes he had left on top of the shovel and began digging while eyeing the bots behind them. "What's going on here–"

"–We're asking the same question. What the heck's going on _here_?" fired back Knuckles.

"This is a prison camp," answered the chipmunk, darting his eyes to the field and the surrounding wasteland. X-Ray heat shimmered in the distance. "Eggman has us working here to drill out and refine his oil."

"Keep working, dudes!" Sonic scolded. He was beginning to wonder if the Eggbots had heard them. "Are those the oil fields behind us?"

"Yes...they're having us work on something...it's like a dock of some sort."

"Why did they slaughter these people?" Knuckles asked with rage ever present in his whisper.

"Two guys from Knothole had a great idea to break out. Needles to say they failed and their actions got ten others killed just for show." The chipmunk shoveled a good portion of the tan dirk and sprinkled it on top of the girl along with his temper. The sight of her stiff, bloated body urged him to cover her up the quickest.

Knuckles peered over the edge of the grave and focused on the Eggbots. They stood deadpan without emotion, studying the progress of the burial detail. _"Come on–turn away!"_ Knuckles lowered himself down a quarter inch and started back pedaling towards the other side of the grave. His stomach squirmed as his shoes fell on the decaying corpses, his hands hovering over them for balance as if he was giving out their last rights all the same.

"Okay, need you guys to close up a little," Knuckles finally whispered over his fragile self. He waited as the two Mobians worked their bodies as a closed shield, doing it smartly as they scattered more dirt across the petrified bodies.

When the bots seemed to pay no attention to their responsibilities after a gut wrenching second, Knuckles threw himself out of the grave in a heartbeat and rolled back across the ground to the emotional safety of the sunflower grove. Breathing in deep, he tried desperately to conjure thoughts of living souls to replace the rotting corpses that he could still see in his trembling mind. He lay flat on his back as white fluffy patches of clouds floated across his paralyzed sight. What little innocence that his vision had left was whisked away like candle being smothered out.

Knuckles somehow summoned the courage not to cry.

"Red, you okay?" Knuckles shook his head vividly at Sonic's question, his dazed sight never leaving the sky. Sonic's curiosity got the best of him when leaned out just enough to try to peer down the trench. Feet and a few faces was all he saw...and all he wanted to see. "This is not happening!"

"It's been happening, but this part is new," the ferret explained, "We've got women here who are pregnant and they're forced to work in this heat." Swallowing hard, he dropped his voice down to a level that he hoped would drive his next point home. "So far...there have been seven stillborns in the camp in the past three months. And the babies that make it are taken from their mothers upon birth. We think the bots are killing them right off."

"Zhink?" Twan bitterly whispered.

The ferret took a quick glance behind his back as he scooped up another load of dirt. "We haven't seen any disposal methods here or at the _Refinery-of-Death_ down the road."

"We had three die two days ago from exhaustion," the chipmunk added, "they have us working there almost day and night over there."

A short pause lathered the air, Knuckles swearing he could hear the voices of the dead speaking to him. Calling upon his heart over his chaos powers, his will power found a leverage in his devastated mind to roll over and focus on the real mission. "Have you heard any code word lingual going around...something like _Chameleon_?"

The ferret lowered his shovel to the newly made hole he was digging into. "No, but..." Sonic held his breath during the short pause. He hated _buts_! "...they did happen to drag two Chameleon's out of here yesterday."

"What, why?" inquired Antoine.

"We don't know. They weren't part of our hut commune. All I know is that they were brother and sister. One was married. The poor husband happens to be out in the fields today from what I've heard."

"Lower your voices, guys...one of those bots just turned his attention towards you," Knuckles warned sharply.

The ferret, and quite possibly the chipmunk, felt every hair on his concealed skin stand on end. He didn't have to look but he still felt the eyes of the bots were firmly glued to his back. He motioned for his partner to work a little harder, keeping silent for a long while.

"The guy is an echidna, by the way. Just like you." The ferret finally explained, holding a longer pause than what was needed. "Speaking of which, who the hell are you guys anyways?"

"Sonic the Hedgehog," came the quip response. "Just don't spread it around too much."

"Will do Sonic," the ferret affirmed quickly, then added, "please tell me you're here to free us? I wouldn't stand for anything less coming from you!"

Sonic brought his gaze around to Twan. The Coyote squarely shook his head deliberately slow over his blue tunic. "Our orderz, Sonic. We can'z jeopardize anymore assetz. We have to follow our orderz."

Musing for nothing short of a second, Sonic shook his head. Knuckles' trembling face had already sealed his decision. "What's the bot force around here besides the two goons behind you?"

"_Sacre bleu_!" Twan cursed under his breath.

The ferret darted his eyes behind for a quick check of prying sensors. "Fifteen: three are airborne, the rest are posted in the towers and fence line."

"And the oil field?" Sonic quickly inquired.

"It's sporadic. A division size I think I overheard last–I really can't say for certain."

"Lemean's might know," the chipmunk remarked, still shoveling the clay on the corpses. Progress could be seen as the girl's terrified face was finally put to rest.

"Yea, _that_ guy is always up to something."

"Lemean's?" asked Sonic.

The ferret swallowed hard. "He's not alone. I keep hearing rumors at night of that leopard keeping a tightknit group. What they do–I haven't the foggiest."

"Guys...keep working," Knuckles urged.

"You bet!" curtly replied the ferret, digging his shovel into the ground again. "So you guys have a plan? Where's your army?"

"We're it!" Sonic festered.

Eyes widened on both Mobians, especially on the chipmunk when he spoke; "Wha...! You mean you came here to..."

"...We came here zo findz outz why Eggman sentz a message here," 'Twan hissed out.

"And then what?" growled the ferret under a low voice.

"...leave," Knuckles replied with a snide tone over his half rolling eyes.

The Chipmunk practically jumped out of his fur, throwing more dirt into the grave instead. "Please tell me you have a contingency for this?"

Sonic did his best not to sound degrading when he replied. He kicked himself when he defaulted back to his blunt voice instead. "We're working on it."

"_Sacre bleu_!"

Knuckles burned his raging eyes at the seething coyote. "Shut-up, 'Twan!"

An eery silence fell on the free and the imprisoned for a moment. The ferret had all he could stand of it. "What if we get you in?"

Knuckles shot his brows to the sky. "What...break _into_ prison? What about headcounts? What happens of they come up with _more_ than they started out with."

"It's just an idea..."

"Shut-up, now!" Sonic snapped, "the bucket of bolts are coming towards us!"

It wasn't a moment too soon when Knuckles raised his head up just enough to see the Eggbots step with long strides towards their general direction. Pulling on Sonic's shoulder, he thrusted his right hand towards the west while only facing his request with a bold expression. Sonic crawled on his belly as fast as caution would allow with Knuckles and Antoine following closely behind. They stopped dead when the dreadful voice box of one of the bots pierced the air:

"WHO ARE YOU TALKING TOO, FUR-BALLS!?"

The ferret gave a cold stare to the chipmunk, hopefully urging him to be silent.

"The dead, _sir_!" he replied, supporting his tired body with his hands clasped over the handle of his shovel.

"Not an excuse when you were chatting to the open field. Who's back there?" proclaimed the bot again, moving it's mechanical feet for a closer inspection of the field.

The ferret felt panic shoot through his body, causing him to step directly in front of the bot. "We want our friends to be at peace from the likes of _you_!"

Knuckles could see the bot that the ferret was talking to through the slits of the thick sunflower steams. _"Come on...don't push him, man. Just let em' come to us."_ Taking a quick glance at Sonic, he observed the hedgehog was ready to rock-and-roll as well. Antoine just kept himself low to the ground, murmuring something in french that was possibly a prayer from the quickness of his mouth.

"Watch your tongue, creature. You might be wearing it soon," growled the bot, taking a long pause as it took note of its counterpart to its left. "Now, who were you two talking too?"

The ferret grabbed every emotion deep down in his soul and brought them all to the forefront of his face. "The dead you mobile garbage can! Now let us give them their last rights so we can be done with this!"

"If you say so..." the bot trailed off, turning its backside away to march off.

The ferret breathed a quick sigh of relief upon seeing that his verbal judo could out smart a machine. With another breath, he clutched his hands further down on the shovel, gaining the confidence he needed to go back to his forced detail.

It would be his last breath of free air in his existence.

Sonic nearly bolted towards the bot, ready to use his quills to the fullest extent of his ability if it wasn't for Knuckles. The echidna saw the blind side coming and jumped right on top of Sonic in a flash before he could attempt to rise up. What they witnessed made them both cringe with rage, fighting their temptation all the same to stay low and not pulverize the Eggbots. In the end, they both knew everyone and everything would be compromised if they did.

All they could do was watch.

The bot snapped its torso around with blinding speed, throttling its arm straight out across the right side of the ferret's face. The chipmunk heard the crushing sound of the jaw separating its muscles and tendons from the mouth. But what really made his soul cower to his toes was seeing his partner's head fatally snap to the left further than it was meant to go, severing his spinal cord from the medulla region of his brain. The ferret never felt the pain or witness the spark of light fade from his sight. His body twisted lifelessly around from the driving inertia of the machine's punch, falling to the ground like a stiff rag doll that rolled off into the mass grave of his comrades and friends; joining them in peace.

The bot released a series of beeps across the blistering air, the chipmunk wondering if it was the machine's way of making a rally cry for victory even when there wasn't so much as a struggle to honor the definition of the word.

"Keep working," it said to him, pointing straight at the trench line for a cruel reference, "or you'll be rotting with them."

"As you wish," the chipmunk mustered to say. Anxiety fell on his heart at that moment, seemingly trying to put him in cardiac arrest with a deathly grip. He waited as the bots turned away again, but this time he held his shovel tightly in his hands, preparing himself for the same fate but honoring a fighting chance this time.

The wind started to waft finally, drying the tear that traversed his furry face. A curt gasp of air forced his urge to weep back down to the pit of his stomach. With that he turned back to his grieving duty as an undertaker for the slaughtered, and continued on despite his emotional upheaval.

"You still there?" he finally whispered after a long minute, hearing the ruffling of the sunflowers in front of him.

Knuckles frowned in sympathy at the lowered eyes of the chipmunk. "Yea..."

"...Good." He waited as he forced a quivering breath into his lungs. "Just before last light, they send all the workers back from the oilfields. It's a thirteen and one-eighth mile march from here. We have a wheat field about half way there..."

"I see where you going, man. Just keep doing what you're doing. We'll figure it out from here," Sonic whispered in a disarming tone.

"I hope so! We can't take anymore sacrifices."

Sonic glanced over to Knuckles. Seeing the resolved filled nod, he turned his attention to Twan. The coyote had mix feelings painted on his face.

* * *

The three Freedom Fighters stood guard in a passive sense for the few hours it took the chipmunk to cover the dead. For Knuckles it was like an unspoken promise. The guy didn't look no more than his age but his malnourished body possibly meant that he was older than he looked. When he walked away, though, Knuckles along with Sonic smiled at the light wave he skulked out from behind his back.

"Whatz are we gonna zu tell ze Princess? We just can't do zhis on our own?" festered Antoine after a long silence.

Sonic nodded in agreement for once with Antoine. "It's just the prisoners, Twan. When we get close, definitely take some candid camera snaps of the oilfields. I want to be back for those. Is that cool with you, Red?"

Knuckles stared hard at the fence line, bowing his head under a resolved filled smug. "It's always been cool, Sonic. Just don't go off on your own with this...I want a cut in this party."

* * *

Yea, I know...finally our guys see this place for what it is. So now what...?

Ever woundered where Aleutian got those scars from?


	16. Lost Courage

* * *

This was a rather difficult chapter to write and then more so when it came down to edit. I spent all of today putting the finishing touches on it and am ready to finally post it up. But...however, this chapter is actually a two part section. It doesn't continue on but instead it will stay focused on Aleutian in the next chapter. You can't rear\d one without the other. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow I can hammer it out and have it done. 

Lost Courage is what it stands for...Courage that has been lost over time, forgotten.

Disclamer: I observe the rights of the orginal creators of the Sonic characters and tak no profit from them

Please read and review.

* * *

**Lost Courage**

by: Mauser

* * *

Amadeus' psyche never left the passing ground beneath him. He stared out the right-side cockpit window as he fought not to sleep, due in part from the smooth flight of the Hoverbot. Considering Sally's words that the outdated piece of Robotnick Primes' junk was all they could spare as transport, and partially due to his suggestions to keep the main transports around for emergencies, the notion of an unsettling ride dissipated right after "skids up". Tails' handling was smooth as silk across the air streams. 

Glancing over to his son, the one eyed fox beamed a smile that was filled with pride. "You fly like it's second nature to you, Miles."

Tails let out a mirthful snort; "It's kinda my life, dad," he quipped, holding a smirk for more than a moment, straying his attention away from the controls just enough to show it to his father.

Amadeus digested the remark in his head before he let out a quick laugh, mostly at himself. Shifting his warm smile to his left, he raised his brows at his cloaked brother. "I should've seen that one coming, eh?"

"We're only Mobian, Amadeus," Merlin replied with a crisp bow of the head. The old fox had the appearance of a monk, but the powers he could summon were immeasurable and mysterious to say the least. Over his dark grey hooded robe were orange colored orbs that could've been easily mistaken as a large necklace, however wielding power of which only Merlin knew. With his hands passively clasped in front of him, he too found peace with the uneventful flight.

Eyeing a screen to the upper left of the flight console, Tails took note of their position across the rolling hills of the Mobian Forest. It wouldn't be long before the full canopy of the trees would be replaced by level fields of grass. "We should be there in a few minutes," Tails announced after seeing the dot of their destination drawing closer on the screen display.

"What's our approach look like?" his dad asked.

"East from what I can tell. The highlands I usually like to bypass, so I made a slight detour around them. Turbulence isn't fun in one of these...trust me!"

Amadeus bowed his head in understanding and continued his numbing trance towards the foothills of the ground. Sailing eight-hundred feet up, he could clearly make out the different species of trees even as they appeared to be an endless blur of green. Speed tackled the distance with ease, crossing the landscape over time that seemed like mere seconds. The tall hills shallowed closer to sea level with trees reducing in numbers being replaced by their trunkless cousins.

Reality soon flowed back into his mind when negative G-forces interrupted his aloft concentration. Tails brought the Hoverbot lower to the ground and followed the shallow valleys with careful rolls and turns. Passing over a grove of trees, an unevenly wide mound appeared over the horizon like a curtain rising up to a play. Giving a quick glance to the onscreen map, Tails rolled his head back to his father:

"We're here, but where's _here_?"

Amadeus leaned forward in his seat and studied the terrain, searching for something that didn't belong on the smooth slopes of the hills. "_That,_ we are here to find. Just keep a sharp eye out for..."

Amadeus knew one when he saw it. The hulk of it was decapitated, and encrusted with rust and clumps of grass, perched at the edge of a ridge that was just lower than the summit of the mound. For a military geared mind like General Prower's, a tank was hard to miss. Even when the turret was missing.

"Find a shady spot to land, Miles," he quickly ordered with a calm voice.

Tails didn't need to be told twice after a quick glance to his left, his azure eyes lighting up almost instantly upon seeing a break in the canopy far off below them. "I think I've found it, pop–hang on!"

Amadeus gave a sharp tug at his restraint belts across his blue uniformed chest as he braced himself. The sinking feeling of negative-G's eroded his numbness to sleep when Tails pushed the Hoverbot towards the ground with a steep one-eighty degree turn. Pulling the control yoke back along with the throttle lever, negative went to positive as the young fox pitched the nose up. His hands went flying across the console to punch the right buttons for the landing skids and reverse thrusters. Watching their descent slow with the heavy tops of the trees as a reference, Amadeus clamped down on the hand rests of his seat, bracing himself against the light shudders. To his surprise, they came to a quick stop with hardly a jolt from the landing. Smoothness had nothing on Tails.

Unsnapping himself from his belts, Amadeus was about to express his profound satisfaction with his son's family linage if the image beyond the cockpit window hadn't made him gape in overwhelming puzzlement. Buried underneath heavy vines and fallen branches stood the testament that a battle from years past had possibly been marshaled at the spot where Tails ensconced their transport as Hoverbots laid entombed under the foliage, their lone blaster cannon with their oval shaped hulks being the only earmarks of their identity.

"Looks like they were retrieving something here," Merlin observed.

Amadeus only nodded, gauging the disordered layout of the transports as a quick snatch and go tactic instead of his previous thoughts. "Any reason for this, Tails?" he asked, figuring his son might know the tactics of the first Robotnick better than he. Course, one rudiment strategy that Prower does remember about the fat Overlander they'd once trusted was that Julian Kintobor could muster a coup d'etat perfectly in the shadows from everyone else.

Prower could only dream of seeing his saber spilling Julian's life contents on the ground, wishing he could have done it twice over with the thought of not seeing his son born still being fresh in his mind.

"This was usually a setup for a prisoner transfer or pickup. Just land, grab and go. It was to make sure they got done as quick as they could before me and Sonic showed up," Miles explained while busy power down the Hoverbot.

"You went on missions?" Amadeus asked with a raised brow.

"...And I still do. I can't let my talents go to waste."

A reaching smile lined Amadeus' face. "Of course not." He then turned his single eye towards Merlin who was already standing. "Ready to dig up some history?"

"That's what I'm here for, dear brother. I can't guarantee my magic will reveal the full story, but I'm sure we can find something for Elias."

With an affirming nod, Amadeus pulled his blue tunic taunt across his body, adjusted his left eye patch, rubbed the polished brass hilt of the saber that dangled from his belt, and checked his boots for any scuff marks that they might've received from the trip over. Satisfied that everything was squared away on his uniform, he took the lead out of the Hoverbot. It was a sentimental treatment in his eye when he touched down on the thick grass. He viewed past battlefields as places of immeasurable honor, and why he took great attention to his uniform before he left. A sloppy soldier to the dead was an unthinkable sight that he would never decree to himself.

At first glance of his surroundings, the clearing wasn't more than a hundred yards in diameter. Slightly to his right laid the littered paths from the gaps between the trees to the barely visible open field to the north. Sucking in a long deep breath, he threw his shoulders back and started his march towards what he believed was the focal point of the mission. _"Got to see about that tank,"_ he said to himself.

"You're sure, nephew, that this wasn't a staging point for an attack?" came Merlin as he stepped out from the Hoverbot.

"I thought the same thing too, Merlin," Amadeus pointed out.

Tails was right behind, taking caution into his surroundings even though his dad and uncle were already ahead of him. "Could be? Can you sense anything here, uncle?"

Merlin closed his eyes for a brief moment. No sights...no sounds. Shaking his head, he moved on, following Amadeus at a leisurely pace through the undergrowth, his mind taking in the tall trees that sprang up all around him. The breeze was felt by all, finding paths through the woods and blowing at their bodies.

* * *

It had been a long while since Amadeus gauged his traveled distance by merely counting his paces. It was one of those skills that either you use it or you lose it. Considering his last place of residence for the past eleven years that was literally on another world were Magnetic North never existed, he downplayed his lapse in the fundamentals of orienteering as something that he had no control of. Instead, he kept focused on the ever brightening field in front of him, stealing a glance over his shoulder and seeing Merlin and his son still lumbering close behind him.

Their trek through the forest ended shortly there after with Amadeus being the first to come to a slow halt at the edge of the long field. A long ago voice–one he realized he truly missed–echoed up from the deepest reaches of his psyche with the image in front of him being the flashpoint of it all.

"_The land is neutral, Prower_,"Mathias had once said to him during the course of a royal dinner party. _"No matter what colors we carry under our banner, the land will always fly white."_

The old dingo...his old friend's voice rang true at that humbling instant. Never once had he thought he would see the sight that was before him now: wavering grass on a field that stretched endlessly in all directions, the tall mound acting as a broad peninsula to the hills behind it in the sea of grass. Two sparrows sang and played in the wafting air, catching Amadeus' gleaming eye only for an instant before he gazed back to the flowing field, the tops of the grass seemingly becoming a waving flag.

"_A battle was fought here,"_ he said to himself, smiling consciously as his face stayed even. _"You can't look at this place and not feel the honor of battle echoing...singing in the wind, calling out the names of those who fell with no one hearing. Only the grass is waving the flag of their triumphs...hinting at the courage that once thrived in the hearts of the unknown. I can't help but feel like I've helped found that courage...that bravery that has been lost."_ His eyes lowered when Aleutian's scarred, depressed face trickled into his mind. _"Why, young Guardian did you keep this lost until now? Why do you not honor your fallen comrades without telling about their last desperate hours here on this world? Why be so selfish of them?" _

"Amadeus, come take a look at this!" decried Merlin from behind him, breaking his numbing trance.

Turning around, he saw Tails kneeling beside his uncle, who was rubbing his grey bearded chin over several downed trees. When Amadeus approached, he could see why. "These were blow off their stumps by charges!" he elaborated quickly.

"Hey dad, check out the burn marks on the one behind you," said Tails, pointing.

Amadeus shifted his stance towards the next specimen. The trunk was littered with plasma marks, however, the whole tree was not scorched beyond recognition.

"It must've rained here when this battle took place," Amadeus finally answered after a long examination. "Merlin?"

"I'm not feeling any energies, my brother. But I do observe a witch under a house," the cloaked fox said, his hood motioning to something under another fallen tree a head of them.

Tails picked himself off the ground and hurried towards it, only stopping dead when his eyes caught the grey metal of a cybernetic arm. "It's a Swat Bot!"

"Are there any others around you?" asked his father.

Tails put his head on a swivel and scoured the ground around him. With his memory afoot from the previous war with the machines, he caught a glimpse of another familiar torn piece of wreckage. "Yea!"

Nodding his head, Amadeus kneeled down beside his brother and spoke his opinions, "someone with good tactical sense laid a nice trap. Blown trees, bots smashed underneath them, and what appears to be close fire support; someone set a lovely trap."

"I agree with you, but from what Elias and the rest had said, the trap was on the reverse side of this equation."

Amadeus faced his puzzled thoughts. "Tails, Mathias _did _say Aleutian was betrayed?"

"To the letter, pop."

Twitching his right pointed ear with the questions that raced through his head, Amadeus stood up and began to march back towards the north. "Something's not adding up. If we are looking for a betrayal then why are we seeing slain bots from well placed charges?"

"My observation: there is more than what lies on the surface," Merlin added --but he really didn't need to.

"How I'd know you were going to say that."

Fumbling his way over the trees, Tails kept a close distance from his father and uncle, all the while searching the field in front of him. The grass stood up to his chest, tickling his fur with every change in the wind. "Anything yet, Uncle?"

Merlin smiled. "Give me time, Miles. Battlefields can be tricky things to uncover."

Letting Tails take the middle, the sorcerer who once served King Maximillan glided across the field, taking note –and wondered if Amadeus had seen them– of craters the size of large cauldron pots dotting the landscape. The rings of sediment were hardly visible from the years of erosion, as the grass staked claim to the perforated soil underneath. Stiffening his interlaced fingers under the long sleeves, he took in the pollen filled air and replaced it with moisture that he could sense in his mind. Closing his eyes as he kept his pace even he pictured rain falling in sheets across the sky. He concentrated on that thought, searching for energies that drifted like discarded papers in the air.

He waited patiently, breathing a steady pattern as he listened intently for long ago echoes.

Groans of machinery suddenly filled his ears. Stopping quickly and shifting his footing around to the right, Merlin slowly lifted his eyelids, finding that the blue sky had turned a sickly pale with his image of rain falling truer than he expected. The grass had become juvenile, being drenched to the point that the ground was becoming more of mud than the latter.

Something zipped through the air behind him, sounding familiarly like a charged practical bolt, but trailing off with a hiss that sounded like steam. This brought Merlin's curiosity to the forefront of his mind, telling him to turn faster to gaze at the source of the heavy, servo footsteps behind him. His pupils suddenly jumped in his eyes when a red plasma bolt ripped across the river of rain towards the mound, leaving a steam trail behind it before dissipating in the falling, heavy drops of water. It wasn't long before four additional bolts of crimson zapped and hissed across the soaked void, leaving the same steam trail as the first. But what Merlin saw next made him question his sight, for it wasn't that the grey sheets of rain that camouflaged their metal skin, Merlin could still see the outline of the Overlander type figures with their domeheads, but it was their numbers that stretched his imagination beyond words. They came out of the thick tree line in hoards, the edge of the front line ending about a hundred yard from where Merlin stood as he followed the line east to west.

Even with his psyche far removed from the present, the arm blasters of the Swat Bots still thundered in his chest, releasing their deadly bolts of energy in swarms, never once letting up to cool down the particle chargers. Pivoting further towards the south, Merlin's sight was met by a black Swat Bot. It and it's countless counter parts marched liked an emotionless army, never fearing life nor death as they seemingly charged into battle without hesitation of what consequence might come. Beyond the frontal push were streamlined shells of tanks, their turrets pointing their pieces to the north, towards the mound, ready to release their shells on binary command.

"_Dear Aurora!"_ Merlin breathed in his mind. That was the only thought he could conjure up before his senses were shattered with what came next.

Thunderous hisses ripped through the rain soaked air like a kid whirling a tethered ball around his head. The chest cavity of the bot in front of him erupted with showers of sparks, metal shards, and hydraulic oil. Merlin counted two piercing hits in the time it took him to blink, counting a third a fraction of a second later that decapitated the bots head from its falling frame. But the black Swat Bot wouldn't be the only machine to experience the carnage of its steel outer shell being ripped open. Its comrades behind and beside it suffered the same fate, gravity setting a course for their terminated chassis to the sloppy ground. Earsplitting claps signified the impacts of highspeed projectiles that slammed into the numerous spaces of the bots' crudely designed bodies without so much of a blur being seen. Only the disrupted pattern of the falling rain marked their flight path. Behind the claps came a muffled series of low popping shunts that never let up, seemingly commanding the bots to disintegrate to pieces before his wide eyes.

"MERLIN!" Amadeus shouted for the third time.

The rain faded as the sky resumed it's blue texture of the present weather. Turning his whole body around to address his brother, he managed to keep an even face over his numbing psyche. "This was a trap for the bots," he said in a teaching tone.

General Prower shifted his brows in puzzlement, Tails only listening intently.

"How so?" asked Prower.

"The charges were set off against a look-and-see group," Merlin observed after reflecting that some of the trees he saw before his senses became blanketed with carnage, were bellowing white smoke from their severed trunks. Even with his limited knowledge with military tactics and strategy, his conclusion wasn't far removed from what they had seen in the woods previously, and now compounded with what he witnessed with his channeled energy.

"...That's called a scouting party," Amadeus corrected, waiting for his brother to continue.

"However you call them, but the prime force came in numbers that I couldn't count, Amadeus. But the defenders of that mound," he motioned with his right hand, "were waiting for them. Don't be surprised if we see the leftovers of propellent weapons."

"Firearms?" question Amadeus. "Those weapons are outdated...especially against metal armor!"

A quick shake of the head. "I witnessed Robotnick's machines being torn apart without the glow of plasma fire. And the rain was thick."

Amadeus' brows shot up from that comment. Heavy rain was the worst environment to fight with plasma weapons. Or in his case during the Great War; the better environment to fight against the Overlanders. Logic soon followed with his reflection; heavy projectiles could definitely increase the odds in a rain storm.

"_So where's the trap?"_ the one eyed fox mused. Turning back around, he continued forward towards slopping the mound, stopping to gauge the diameter of a few craters along the way.

Merlin on the other hand, kept his mind open to the wind. Finding his place well in the expedition, he channeled his thoughts back the rain, clearly seeing the weather as a leaping point from the present to the past. As he stepped passed an eroded crater, he suddenly saw the eroded hole in the ground erupt with mud, smoke, and steam that showered the heavy air. The thunderous blast of air could still be felt even when the event had long ceased from existence. Merlin nearly leaped backwards as torn, twisted pieces of Swat Bots rained down on top of him with the tossed clumps of mud, showering down with the rain. Blue and orange plasma bolts soon followed, darting towards the south in sporadic bursts; shouting voices fighting to overpower the earsplitting sounds of weapons discharging all the while.

Merlin felt the energy leave him, but not without hearing a whistling shriek that ended with another thunderous _BOOM!_

"What's the term you use to describe where nothing lives during a battle, Amadeus?" he asked after regaining his senses to walk forward.

"No-man's land!" bolstered Prower. "You see it too?"

"I might term as, no-machines' land. Tell me, Tails; how did the old Swat Bots operate in combat? Were they cunning?"

Tails kept his eyes forward, tracing a hollow ridge at the foot of the mound as he kept pace with his father. "Only to stay booted up. They could fly, think on their own, and duck for cover, but they lacked ambition that sometimes made them a sitting duck."

"Fly?" countered Amadeus, snapping his head back over his shoulder. "What about in the rain, son?"

"Don't see why they didn't?" Tails replied.

"Skeet?" Merlin pondered aloud.

A frowning nod. "Good reason not to with heavy firepower on the field."

With the tactical question of flanking maneuvers coming to mind, Amadeus look to the west and east of the wide mound. It was about three hundred yards across, he guessed, before both sides gently curved towards the north. There, it carved into a rig that stood only a few meters taller than itself before forming into a very broad plateau that stretched across the horizons in all directions. All the enemy had to do was flank the defenders from the east while push on up the center of the hill. Hammer and anvil, Amadeus reflected. It was simple enough that a poorly trained platoon could manage to attempt, much less succeed in trying.

But even with that logic, the craters in the ground showed the bots had little in the way for battle theory, assaulting the defensive ridges head-on like they were soldiers only looking for the glory of death and not victory.

"_Unless...the defenders were just being toyed with."_ That...Amadeus couldn't fathom to be possible.

Stopping cold when his eye laid upon the summit of the bottom divide, Amadeus examined the mound with his trained mind afoot to his surroundings. Behind the crest laid a well concealed trench that wasn't carved in by the weather or the growing grass, but instead by many hands. Leaping down into the shallow crevice, Prower examined the defensive battlement with strict attention. The cover line was tall enough to fully conceal his head but shallow enough to come up and take a pop shot with a crossbow if he had to.

Shifting his battle attuned senses to the tall face of the mound itself, he took note of the littered craters that had sprouted grass over time and seasons. The depressions were noticeable but someone could also easily mistaken them just for the hill's features. Sitting squarely on the two, possibly three story summit was the wrecked hulk of the tank, its right tread clearly off the drive wheels and dangling out of sight on the ground. To Amadeus it looked pathetic without the semblance of a turret sitting atop its battered hull, only wondering what decapitated the tank; even if he could call it that now.

"Hey dad, take a look at this?" shouted Tails as he dashed up to his father and Merlin with something clasped in his hand. Holding it out, the two older foxes studied the speckled white rectangularly rounded object. A slit had been cut into the center, rounding the object like an equator to a planet with bulges to either side of it. What intrigued Tails about it was the countless holes it had littered around it.

"I don't know, son? Looks like a hand grenade if you ask me; just the shape is a little off."

"Electro Magnetic Pulse?" inquired Merlin.

Tails shook his head. "EMP's don't have holes. Besides, this device is too small to be one."

Prower pivoted to steal a quick look to the trench; "Well, at any rate, I'm venturing to guess that this was the first line of defense..."

"_...and that's where Knothole stands!"_ Merlin shot his head over to the trench, seeing nothing but hearing everything that a young baritone voice was proclaiming. _"If we turn tail and run...we'll have nothing to go home to! Knothole will fall, and the world will fall with them. We're all in the middle of a trap...a betrayal that is overreaching! We've all been used so no one can help save Knothole from the tide that's coming for us! Robotnick expects us all to be dead or Robotosized by now. His army is about to pay for that assumption. Dish it out for Knothole!...They depend on us this morning!"_

"Amadeus!" Merlin called out. "They knew about the trap!"

Prower shook his stunned head from the out burst. "What?"

A curt nod. "A strong voice echoed here, rallying people to fight for Knothole. They knew what was coming."

Staring up the hill, Amadeus let his puzzledment show on his face. Shaking his head, he said, "lets see what that tank holds."

* * *

To Merlin's delight, the thirty degree incline wasn't hard to traverse thanks to a trail that one really had to look for to find it. Upon a quarter of the way behind them, the cloaked fox closed his eyes again and searched the air for sounds and disturbances. It didn't take long for low rumbles to come to him, followed by piecing laser fire from all directions it seemed. But when he opened his eyes back to what he thought was the same world, he was violently gripped with terror from the sight that laid before his robed feet.

Staring up at him with brown eyes that tore into Merlins heart was a khaki colored coyote, crying deeply as he frantically grabbed at his spilled out intestines. Purple blood drenched the soaked ground beneath him with more spilling out from his severed groan. His left leg was barely intact, sliced to pieces with ivory white chunks of bone spread across his ripped BDU's and the mud. His right was totally gone. Merlin stood in horror as his petrified psyche kept asking him why the poor soul was still alive. He faced his sorrow at the image, ignoring the flashes of plasma bolts slicing through the easing rain.

"_JAX–JAX!" _screamed out the coyote over his racing pants, begging with his arms out as a salt and peppered wolf raced up beside Merlin. "_HELP...ME...JAX! PLEASE...HELP ME!"_

The wolf stopped, his heavy black rifle centered across his chest with the barrel pointed safely towards the ground, wearing the same battle dress as the dying coyote. He was about to say something when the ground beside him was pelted by red plasma fire, bellowing steam from the blackened mud. The smell of the ozone and the excretions from unknown origins somehow filtered into Merlins black noise. He almost wanted to spit for he could taste it.

"_PLEASE...JAX!" _The coyote's breaths were fastly approaching hyperventilation, every in take producing a shrieking weep.

The wolf took a quick and frightening look where the plasma fire had originated. Terror stretched across his face as he beamed it back down towards the coyote. Shouldering his rifle, Jax lifted the barrel and centered it on the coyote's head.

"_JAX –NO! PLEASE, NO..." _

The wolf turned his grimacing face away just before he pulled the trigger. The coyote's brain flash fried when the plasma bolt leaped out from the barrel and connected to his furred head, burning it along with his eyes. He never felt the pain as his body relaxed without so much as a shudder of protest of his soul leaving his ripped open corpse.

Giving no time to reflect, the wolf sprinted up the hill, deviating from the well defined path as he climbed straight up with his rifle spread across his hands. Just as suddenly as they raced by Merlin's head, two crimson bolts seared into the wolf's back without any show of remorse, cutting him down face first into the mud. His body twitched as it rolled down the hill, stopping just mere feet from where his life was taken.

Merlin took in what he saw and felt his heart beat with sorrow. With ice that now seemed to flow through his veins, he was about to shout to his brother when a hard charging female echidna sprinted up beside him, her locks and hair drenched from the rain, fluttering across her shoulders and back. In an instant it took one to blink she suddenly skidded to a hard stop and spun around. Her blue eyes raged with fire as she brought a slender but bulky constructed rifle up to her shoulder, its barrel protruding four inches under the particle charger bar that was enshrouded over a thick forearm stock.

"_NOOO!! TAKE THIS YOU PIECES OF ..." _Her ear-shattering scream became mute over the sharp whining claps of her rifle, keeping pressure on the pistol grip trigger as she took no sight picture from the compacted raised scope. Her body shuddered with every repulsing kick. Merlin could clearly make out her canines as she bared her teeth to the things that showed no quarter. Somehow, her passionate rage added to her elegant beauty even in the midst of the grisley ordeal. Merlin couldn't help but eye her trim figure under a thick black jacket, her firm breast covered up with a cotton green shirt.

"_EMEE; GO!" _came a forced yell from behind Merlin.

"_NOT WITHOUT YOU!"_ she screamed back, dropping the slender box battery cell with a push of a button the side of the rifle before slapping a new one in.

A blur of black and red raced right through Merlin. It was another echidna, his back turned and grabbing the arm of the girl to push her up the hill. _"Don't shoot, just run!"_

Merlin watched as the two made a desperate dash up the hill, their rifles trailing beside them as the boy kept her body covered with his. Suddenly a brown squirrel appeared before him, scurrying as fast as she could up the muddy slope with a rifle clutched close to her chest.

Neither Merlin nor the girl heard the whistling thunder of a shell racing over head, landing right where the squirrel stepped at that very moment. She exploded in a shower of red flesh and purple blood. When her body settled with the raining mud, she resembled nothing of her feminine self but a butchered piece of meat.

"Tails; STOP!" shouted Merlin after his sight faded to the sanctuary of peace to the present day. Miles quickly obey what he was told, holing his left foot up before he stepped in a crater. "Please, walk around that, nephew," Merlin said, finding that he didn't discipline his voice enough to show calm.

"Merlin, what's gotten into you?" asked Amadeus from afar up the hill. His answer was given by a cold shake of the head. Seeing this, General Prower made his way back down, clasping Tails' shoulder. "Stay here Tails."

"But dad..."

"Stay!" Amadeus asserted, squeezing Tails' shoulder. Seeing his request was going to be fulfilled, he stepped passed his son and made his way up to his brother.

When he arrived, Merlin had a somber but puzzled look about him; "A girl was sent to Aurora in the most violent way that _I _have _ever_ witnessed." He swallowed hard as he caught the stare of his Nephew. "Where we stand, a coyote was killed out of mercy by his fellow soldier." A long deafening pause. "And that soldier was slain for his actions up the mound."

General Prower stiffened his body as he spread his sight across the land to the east. "What else have you seen," he asked with a low, even voice.

"A girl...an echidna girl."

"...And a boy by chance?"

A curt nod with focused eyes. "I think I have seen our Aleutian."

Placing his arm around his brother's back, Amadeus gave a light push to Merlin as a come-on. "I'm hoping that tank has something for us at the top."

A quick sigh as he found his footing. "I hope so."

* * *

Navigating the slightly cumbersome trail in silence, Tails lead the way to the top of the mound. There, he found the path had cut deep across the ridge that formed another trench. It stretched a hundred feet until it ended under the decapitated tank. The sun brightened the dark green texture, showing only minute traces of rust on the armored hull. When Tails looked back to his father, he could clearly see the dotted moonscape of the field below.

"How does a turret get blown clean off a tank?" he asked.

"A lucky shot!" his father returned, only rasing his brow at the question: "What's the accuracy of Robotnick's old machines?"

"Dead-on, dad. They were machines for crying out loud!"

Prower rolled his eyes at himself. _"Maybe not so lucky."_

The short conservation took them to the wrecked hull. Tiny blades of grass intruded through the spaces of the treads as dandelions played amongst the seven track wheels with the wafting wind. Dangling half off the wheels were the metal treads, looking like slabs of ribs already cooked. Seeing that the bottom portion of the track had laid a four foot trail at the front, Amadeus quickly concluded that the tank had attempted to make a covering retreat when the right side tread took a hit during the fight and rolled off the lead drive wheel. Fifty feet directly behind it lay its head, the back end of the large rectangular turret pointing skywards as its barrel pierced through the ground like a spear, its frontal portion resembling an acute triangle that pointed forward.

The tall wheat grass and dancing flowers was a fitting grave to it in Prower's eye.

Using the slumped tread as a latter, he and Merlin climbed up the tall hull. Taking great care in where he placed his hands, Amadeus peered down to the bottom portion. To his amazement none of the controls nor anything of value were striped from the inside. But he did see dried Mobian and Overlander blood –the darkened brown stains of the Skinners' life elixir wasn't hard to miss.

"Stay there, Tails," Amadeus said with a disarming tone. "Don't go anywhere."

"But I can help, dad!"

Merlin this time took in a calm voice as he peered off the side of the decapitated hull. "Plus, young nephew, it will only be for a moment."

Tails huffed his indifference, crossed his arms tightly across his chest in defiance, and took to his surroundings with slanted eyes. _"I'm older than I look."_

Pushing his son's minuscule rebellion, and the thought of his uniform getting dirty aside, Amadeus climbed down inside with his brother doing likewise, taking great care where they stepped. When they settled inside, both brothers were overcome by the insufferable heat as they began to study the heart and soul of the tank. Peering towards the front, Amadeus noted that the driver didn't have much of a chance to escape his or her death. The metal surroundings had scorched marks all around the driver's seat, which had been burned to ash, leaving nothing more than the wiry metal supports of the backrest. The controls on the other hand were smashed beyond recognition, the driver's hatch caved in with the top laying in the seat.

On the floor beside his left boot laid the ivory trace of a bone fragment –a muzzle of some Mobian species, Amadeus realized with relaxed eyes.

"Feel anything?" he asked after a long silence of gathering his observations."

"No...but this should be enough."

A long sweeping glance to the rear of the inside. "No one survived this," he somberly explained, peering through a hole at the firewall that exposed part of the large fly wheel on the engine.

Merlin lowered his eyes, finding his brother's words driving his next line of thoughts. "Why haven't we seen any bodies...graves?" he asked eerily calm. His answer came only as a musing shake of the head.

Tails stabbed the ground with his white and red shoe, shifting his wondering attention to the north. Standing with his arms crossed, he could make out what appeared to be another trench some distance away. Gazing intently past the overturned turret, the young fox realized that the hill they were on was really a barrier to the upper lands. Lightly huddled trees mark the sides of a well beaten road. Over the horizon, more empty stretches of rolling land.

Turning his soar face back towards the turret, Tail's saw something move from behind the turret. He strained his eyes, seeing nothing at first until a small shoe appeared from around the weathered steel. A second later, he was met by a pair of seething brown eyes.

"DAD!" he slowly forced out, backing up slightly and readying himself to dive into the trench behind him.

"Not now, son!" shouted his father through the gapping hole where the turret once stood.

"BUT DAD!"

"Miles Prower...what did I just–"

It was an unmistakable sound that could leave the most experienced soldier standing in fear; a shot-blaster chambering in a lithium battery to charge the particle accelerators. The mechanical action sent shivers down across Amadeus' spine with the muffled whining of the chargers burning his ears After the initial shock died in two heartbeats, he placed his right hand over the hilt of his saber and slowly peered out of the tank. What he saw next was beyond his comprehension.

A short, blonde Overlander girl stood ten feet away from Tails, holding him at bay with a pump-action plasma gun. Her hair was pulled back behind her in a pony tail, but her face and stance meant all business. Holding the scatter gun over her right hip, she tensed her grip on the stock and pump.

"GET OFF THE TANK!" she quickly demanded with a high pitched, distorted voice.

Amadeus eased his hands up over the tank and tried to produce a smile over his frightened self. "Easy little one. We're only here to look."

"I SAID GET OFF THE TANK, FURRY! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND PLAIN SPEAK!?"

"I certainly do, young lady, but I..."

"Then get off the tank! You're standing on holy ground!"

When Merlin raised up from the tank she jerked the barrel around towards him. Amadeus took note at what she said and her reflexes, and determined right then that she wasn't to be fooled with. She was trained. Poorly, but she was trained.

"We'll do as you ask, but can you be so kind to safety and lower your weapon?"

"It stays on you, Furies! Now move!"

Amadeus and Merlin didn't need anymore motivation than the tempered girl and her shot-blaster. With fear afoot in both of them, they climbed off the tank like molasses in winter, taking great care in not to make sudden movements. When they both had landed on the grassy plain, she relaxed her grip, but not by much.

"Now leave, or my father will deal with you!"

Amadeus took the remark as a weapon. "Why don't you, young lady. You have the power in your little hands."

She widened her stance, mostly to relieve her aching feet. "I said leave, Furry! All of you!"

"And if we don't?"

The girl laid silent, showing Prower that her soul was still innocent even though the shot-blaster said otherwise. He shook his head inward as he kept a determined smug look across his face. She looked comical in her pose; a blue pair of pants that extended to her calves, and a white t-shirt that was speckled with dirt.

Finally she answered to Amadeus' delight; "You won't be the first people I've kill, and I'm a pretty dang ole shot with this!"

"Sure you have." Merlin and even Tails swung their frightened faces around at him as Amadeus kept his cool.

"Are you testing me, mister!?" she fired back.

Merlin answered with his hands gesturing as a plea below his waist: "Please child, we mean no harm."

"Then why are you here, and why are you in the tank? You've already caused enough harm just by being here!"

Amadeus brought his hands up for calmness. "Young Lady, we are sorry if we have disturbed your shrine here. Okay?" A curt nod from the girl. "To answer your question: we are here to learn what all transpired here."

"Then, who are you?"

The one eyed fox anticipated that question as did his kin:

"I'm General Amadeus Prower from the House of Acron," he said with solemn bow. "This is my brother Merlin, and my son Miles."

She stood there for a moment, still keeping her weapon pointed in their general direction. When her determined face morphed into a puzzling stare, Amadeus knew he had won her over. "You're a _real_ General?"

"Yes, ma'am. The stars on my shoulder boards along with the gold tassels reminds me of my responsibilities." He waited to let her star struck mind soak in the little speech. "May I be so kind as to ask your name?" This he noticed put her on the defensive.

"Amber."

"Okay Amber, may I ask why this ground his holy?"

A long pause. "My daddy says it is, and he doesn't want to see people on here like the likes of you."

"_Okay little one...easy now," _Merlin whispered in the air.

However, Amadeus saw something different. With his next question, he hoped the answer wasn't going to be heartbreaking for the little girl. Rage and a shot-blaster is never a good combination.

"Is your father around, Amber?"

Again, another long pause. With her answer came a face filled with scorn. "Yea, he's back at the house, Furry!"

Her threatening demeanor never phased him. Amadeus knew she was trying to bring control back to her end, and he let her. "May we speak to him? I'm sure he is a reasonable man to just have a talk. After all, we are only wanting to learn what happened out here; to give the dead peace."

Merlin shot his a brother a glance that made him know how much of a bold face liar he was. Any man who lets their daughter play out in the field with a scatter-gun just couldn't be reasonable.

"Okay, Furies! But I'm 'lettin you know, I'll be 'havin my eye on you's."

"Darling, I'm the one who has the eye..."

"...Ah, a funny man..."

"...I'm just only trying to correct you."

Amber snuffed. "The only thing that will be _corrected _around here _will_ be _you_. Now get 'ah move-on!" she fused, pointing her shot-blaster towards the north.

With Amadeus taking the lead, making sure his hand stayed away from his saber, Tails felt the tension somewhat lessen. When he glanced back towards his uncle, he almost wanted to laugh at Amber's expense as she held the oversized scatter-gun like a spear across her hips. But nevertheless, he still had vast amounts of respect for the weapon she held, as one blast could unleash a wave of plasma that could scattered across the air, and at her range, she could easily cut him and his uncle down with a pull of the trigger. Tails just prayed she had the safety on.

Dropping down into the trench, Amadeus studied the features with a hastily tour of his eye without stopping his forward pace –last thing he wanted was for the little girl to get agitated even more so than she was. It wasn't as long as the previous ones behind them, but it was surprisingly wider and deeper with the ridges of dirt coming up to his knees. When he stepped out of it, his tactical mind concluded it was a rallying point. Nothing lay beyond him as a source for cover. What ever the battle plan had been for the engagement, it was thrown together without much preparation. That much was certain.

Merlin quickly closed his eyes, mustering up his senses as fast as he could manage. When he opened his eyes, he was met by disappointment. His vision still held the blue sky and approaching setting sun over his left shoulder.

Blinking his eyes to focus away the brightness of the clear day, he sighed as he eased his way across the...

"_ALEUTIAN!"_

Merlin fired a gasping glance over his right shoulder. The girl's mind piercing scream was enough to make his heart race as he searched the heavy air for her, hoping to find who he knew was the same girl echidna that he witnessed from before. Anxiety somehow found a path to his weary mind, gripping his senses with sadness as he took in the terror filled voice; only undying love and fierce anger could echo that loud from the energies past.

"_Speak to me my child...what happened? I feel you...tell me what happened!" _he exclaimed in the air, listening with his powers for her reply.

There was nothing but silence of the wind.

"Hey old fart...keep it going!" demanded Amber from behind him. He soon felt obligated when the barrel jabbed into his back.

Amadeus waited as his brother lumbered over the trench. What he could hold for a smile faded when he saw the scarred look on Merlin. "Everything all right?" The answer came as a hard stare. Turning back to the way ahead, Prower was beginning to wonder if his brother was going to need counseling for post-traumatic stress. The Magician's face said it all.

"So how far is it, Amber. To your house I mean?" Tails inquired with a stiff voice.

"About a mile. Say--why you have two tails? You like deformed or something?"

Tails shot his dad a nasty look when he heard his old man chuckle. "I'm perfectly normal! Unlike you who carries a _gun_..."

Sharp points of ice seemed to fossilize Merlin's nerves, beckoning him to jar to a stop. If it wasn't for Amber and her shot-blaster behind him, he would've.

"...it keeps me safe from the black monster, twerp!"

"Ha!" Tails snorted with a snide laugh. "You're still afraid of monster's under your bed!?"

"Tails!..."

"_AAAAAHHHHHHHHH...!"_

Merlin this time obeyed the voices in his head and locked every muscle in his body to a shaking halt. The mournful scream still echoed in his pointed ears as he glared back towards the source of it.

"...Oh, monsters are real. I saw one back at my old house. It would've killed my daddy if it wasn't for me. And you know what..."

Deep weeping screams floated through the air without any resistence from the wind. Merlin's right ear involuntarily twitched under his cloak as he listened the tearful sobs replace the agonizing moans. He kept staring...waiting.

Amber gave two slaps on the polymer stock of her rifle. "...If that monster comes back, I'm gonna give him a good juicing with this here scatter-gun.

"Hey fur-ball, you gonna move or not!?"

Merlin somehow found the will to walk again, bowing his head low as his hands were covered by his overlapping sleeves. His heart felt crushed with emotional pressure from an outside source, wondering if a monster had been created far off behind him in the distant past.

Amadeus never saw his brother's reflective face. Keeping his eyes forward and his wits about him, he changed the subject with a simple question.

"So who's daddy, Amber?"

* * *

Darien Wallace wasn't finding any pleasure with his dirt garden. He was supposed to kick back, relax, and grow a garden to find tranquility in life; not fight for it. It was there at that blistering moment that he was willing to give in to his temptation to totally give up and sit on his rump and vegetate. At least he would grow something that way; a nice fluffy beard over his smooth face. Stabbing the ground with the flat bladed shovel, he maneuvered his heavy black boots around the humps of tilled ground. He wasn't far off from being done with prepping the garden. Seeds were next on his list, and he seriously hoped that the next batch would produce something other than one pitiful turnup.

With another thrust towards the ground, the shovel's handle this time gave into Darien's over strengthened arms, splitting the wood into a sharp spear that slashed opened his left hand. Bawd descriptions of fecal matter and male puppies of a female dog spewed from his mouth. But not ending without being followed up by:

"Damn it!"

Wanting to wrap his injured hand over his grey shirt, the former medic in him came out and told him otherwise for fear of infection. Reaching deep into his right cargo pocket–the left pocket was completely missing–he found his emergency gauze bandage that he kept for stupid brain-farts such as this. His hand was ripped across the palm towards the pinky with crimson blood raining down towards the ground. Wrapping his hand and applying direct pressure with his right, he still found fondness for the female dog as he said her name twice over. Finding the strength to walk over the pain, he cowered his hand across his waist and began the journey to get stitched up. And he knew he was going to need stitches.

Rounding the west side of the house that resembled a compound over the latter, Darien sped up his walk towards the door. Trees provided shade for it but not by much to keep the power generator from straining to keep the place cool. To his right lay the open dirt path towards Old Mobotropolis that was nothing more than a glowing parking lot. It wasn't until he tried to reach the door knob that something caught his eye down the path. Black silhouettes appeared over the x-ray heat void, their figures shimmer as they crept closer. Darien waited at the door, calculating whether he needed to spring for a gun. Lucky for him that he shot with his right.

When they became visible as they passed under a few trees that dotted the road, Darien couldn't believe his straining eyes and his aching head. _"Foxes?"_ he gasped at himself, turning away from the door. He started walking forward soon after, focusing on the smaller of the group who seemed to have two tails.

What he saw next turned his eyes into acid. "Amber...get over here, NOW!" he barked, pointing down at his daughter's destination with his blood soaked hand.

"But daddy, I found these, Furies..."

"...I said get over here! Don't make me order you again. Is your _shot-blast_ chambered?"

"Uh-huh!" she quickly returned as she started to run around her captors.

"What was _that_!"

A scorn look rippled across her face. "_Yes_, sir!"

Darien watched his daughter with slits for eyes as she scrambled up beside him. "That's what I want to hear for the duration of the day! Understood?"

She cowered her blond head down towards the ground, her shot-blaster pointed to the same place across her chest. "Yes sir."

"Good," he replied with a calmer voice. "Now go inside, safe your weapon and get ready for supper while I attend to these gentlemobians."

"Yes, sir," she affirmed with a skipping dash to the door.

When Amber had slammed the door, the short Overlander turned his attention to the even shorter trio of foxes:

"Can I help you?" he asked at a relaxed attention, his eyes focused with wonder.

Amadeus studied the Overlander a little more than what the silence had called for, eyeing the his posture more so than his blood soaked hand. Somewhere, a smile formed across his lips.

"Might want to get that looked at, soldier. That's going to require some..."

"...yea I know, Prower! And I am not a soldier."

Amadeus blinked with confusion. Not because Darien knew who he was, but because the way he renounced his former self even though it still stood rigid in his demeanor. "You will always be..."

"Save me, Prower! I an't got the time of day for that horse squeeze." Darien shifted his eyes behind Amadeus and smirked. "Hello, Merlin. Looks like you've seen a ghost. That magic of your's isn't getting to your head." He then darted his eyes to Tails. "So who's the pipsqueak?"

Amadeus narrowed his eye. "That's my son Miles, sir!"

"Oh! So this is Tails," the Overlander quipped. "I've heard a lot about you. So far you're a better Mobian than your father." Darien exchanged cold glances with the one eyed fox before he ended the bitter introductions. "Yea, I know who you are, General. I wasn't around for the whole war, but I sure did get to know your name pretty well along with that snout of your's."

"Just put it aside, sir. If you want, I can help stitch your hand up."

A curt shake of the head. "No need to turn your hands red. I've gained enough experience to do it on my own –no thanks to Acorn's policies of war!"

"Burnt organs aren't glamours either, sir!" Merlin finally spoke up.

Darien stood in silence as he digested the bitter exchange over the throbbing pain in his hand. "So what do want? Is it that scrap I sold to you all after the first war? I specially said I wasn't responsible if those damn machines coming back to life. Okay? I..."

Amadeus cut him off with a wave of the hand and a disarming expression. "We're not here for that."

"Okay! Well then, you are all free to leave. I have a hand to stitch up before I bleed to death. I apologize for what my daughter has done, and I _will_ be rectifying that, I assure you."

Darien executed the sloppiest about-face that Amadeus had ever seen in his military life.

"We're here to find out about a battle. Can you tell us anything about it?" Amadeus asked with a commanding voice that reflected his leadership position.

Darien kept his march to the door. "Many people died to save your families," he replied, his indifference still clearly evident in his mocking tone.

"You can be a little more descriptive about, can you!?" Amadeus fired back, easing forward with his remark. "King Elias is seeking for what had happened here so we can honor the veterans and gain an understanding of what they been through." He saw he touched a nerve when the Overlander stopped at the door, almost reaching for the handle. "We are also looking to find out about an echidna name Aleutian and what his role..."

Darien coldly cut Amadeus off under a quite whisper that still seemed to seethe from his lips."...Who's name did you just _say_?"

Amadeus exchanged glances at his brother and son before he repeated the name. "His name's Aleutian."

Cocking his head to the side, he hunched his back as if lightning had struck the ground beside him. "Where is he!?"

"He's with his father," replied Tails evenly.

Darien finally turned around, his face still tempered from the throbbing pain and now something else. "So Mathias finally chained that monster to his sub?"

"What d'ya mean Mathias, sir. Aleutian's dad is the Guardian Locke!"

"Huh?" Darien festered, shaking his head. "That doesn't make any sense?"

Amadeus brought his brows up. "Mathias' son was a Chester Drake. Unfortunately they're both gone none, their bodies committed to the sea."

The Overlander just stood there with his left hand dripping blood on the ground, musing over something that Amadeus couldn't put his finger on.

"And the sub?" he finally asked.

"Sunk."

"And Aleutian?"

Prower looked at his son Miles and nodded. "With his father...Locke."

Darien perched his lips tight, fighting to make a choice over the his throbbing hand and formidable heat. The long faces of the Prower's won out.

"Please, come inside."

Amadeus saw the instant change in the skinner's demeanor. Somehow, Aleutian's name had struck a nerve that pushed all difference of a long past war aside. Darien's eyes traced the ground with bitter sadness, almost like he was willing to cry. He faced the door in front of him and walked towards it, his back postured as to invite the foxes to follow. They did, and to Amadeus, he felt the fete was uneasy. He still felt contempt to the skinners', however, he was willing to curb his thoughts.

"You'll have to excuse the mess, I have a ten year who thinks everything's a toy," Darien said as he stopped at a pair of heavy metal doors.

"This looks like an old compound?" Tails observed from behind the Overlander.

"Hold over from the Great War. This was a field hospital for us back in the day; now I just call it home."

Merlin chuckled at the comment as he followed the Overlander inside behind Amadeus. What Darien had said about his home rang true. Slits for windows near the ceiling limited the sunlight to the inside, weakly exposing a large living room that was littered with furniture and other essentials for comfort, carving a pathway that Merlin believed he would need a map to get around. Newly constructed walls formed the single rooms down a wide hallway. Lights were left off to let the sun do their work, leaving gapping patches of darkness in the house.

"Heather, we have guests," Darien announced as he navigated towards a desk on the left wall. "And I need a sutcher kit!"

"What d'ya do this time?" came a soft but demanding voice from down the hall.

"I split my hand open good, sweety. Now please hurry!"

"You wanna eat!?"

Merlin did his best not to smile but his free will lost in the endeavor. Finding his eyes focused on the Overlander's injured hand, he traced the glimmering red blood to the concrete floor...and there, is smile faded as quickly as it came. The outside light was more than enough to pierce through blackness. Shivers came over him as he witnessed the blood splatters turn from crimson to violet with every drop, glimmering under the low sunlight as the stains became pools.

Tracing his sight back up the dark boots and pants of the Overlander, his eyes fell on a limp tail that didn't belong. It was red and rinsed with streams of blood that trickled down the tip, dripping to the floor like drops of rain. Merlin traced a larger river of blood up the bare, lower left back, of whom he realized was an echidna, two deep gashes separated by an inch across from each other screamed out in pain to Merlin's sympathetic eyes. He fought the urge to look away, but in turn, he focused on the boy's slumped right shoulder and dangling dreads. Merlin had never thought he would see the truest meaning of the phrase _bleeding-from-head-to-toe_ standing before him. Drawing courage from his stunned mind, the old sorcerer took the needed steps to move across the floor, watching the right side of the echidna's complexion change for the worse. Two fresh slashes streaked behind his right eye, spilling his life's contents down his neck and over both sides of his shoulder. Even his dangling locks weren't spared. But what strangled Merlin's heart with unwavering sadness for the echidna was the boy's muzzle. A deep fissure gouged across his face, spilling a river of blood that traversed his gapping mouth down to his chest; staining the white fur crest of his birthright as Guardian. It was at that gut wrenching moment that Merlin knew he was starring at Knuckle's brother, swaying as his senses fought to stay conscious, the echidna's breathing deep, taking in long pulls of sweet oxygen through his mouth, his jaw trembling as he exhaled.

But what called Merlin's attention to the forefront was the Guardian's blue eyes. They were eaten with rage, turning into slits as his brows were forced to the brink of collapsing...crying murder!

"You mind shutting the door!?" decried a flustered feminine voice from behind him.

Merlin turned to see an Overlander woman walk behind him and closed the door to the bright outside. If the fox was a foot and a half inch taller, he could easily match the brunet girl in height. Her clothes were of a working type, covered by a blue aparine with speckles of flour and grease scattered on it. Her face was smooth all the way around, giving hints that her smile was far better than her agitated gaze at the cloaked fox.

"I apologize. My mind _must _be wandering," he finally answered with a cordial bow. When he turned his attention back to the front of him, the Guardian was gone, replaced by Tails and a recliner.

Heather said nothing, but instead walked over to Darien at the desk and handed him a small black webbed case. He took it from her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Thank-you, Heather."

"Let me help you out with that, sir," requested Amadeus.

Darien looked at his injured hand and nodded. "Yea...I'm gonna need a second pair of hands for this one..."

"...And I'm not lacing our dinner with your blood!" Heather returned with a grump voice.

Prower smiled as he unbuttoned his tunic. "Don't worry, my hands are pretty steady for this."

"That's okay, I just have hands of silver, not gold."

Amadeus flinched his head at the comment as he removed his arms from his uniform sleeves, exposing his brown furred chest. "What do you mean by that?"

Darien took a seat at the desk and switched on a florescent lamp against the wall. "I used to be a battlefield surgeon during the Great War...which wasn't so great on my end. I only was taught the basics so that I could patch someone up in the field so the real doctors could have a shot at killing them. I'm second rate to the real thing you might say."

Amadeus nodded his head in a understanding while draping his tunic on the back of a walnut stained chair before sitting in it.

Unzipping the bag, Darien produced a syringe and filled it from a clear vial before he handed it off to Amadeus. "Place the needle here and squeeze down on the plunger," he instructed, pointing his right index finger at the center of his hand.

Amadeus did just that, watching Darien wince from the needle prick but then observed his face relaxing. "Feeling better?"

"Ahh, the wonders of lidocaine," he breathed out. Taking a needle and a black string of thread, he handed it off to Amadeus. "Thread it in, tie it up, and I'll walk you through this. It's easier than what most people think."

Once Prower did as he was asked, Darien pointed to the bottom portion of the long gash and guided Amadeus in closing up the wound. But seeing only brought repressed thoughts that he longed to stay repressed.

"How are the scars on his face?"

"You know about those?" Tails blurted out.

"That's cause I worked on him," Darien forced out as Amadeus began another stitch. "I almost wished I hadn't some days, but...that's my handy work across his face."

Tails took a step closer. "So, how did he get those?"

"He...OW! Watch it! That's my hand there!" Amadeus shot him a trying face before he continued with the next stitch. "Yea...he–ah, had ah...hand grenade go off in his face."

They way Darien said it made the stuffy room go cold. With glances being exchanged around the room, Merlin ask the next question; "Were you there when that happened?"

He winced when Prower jerked the needle by accident. "No, I happened to be running for my life to get back to my family."

"So, how do you know it was a grenade?" inquired Amadeus.

Darien took a deep breath as he waited for the next stitch to be put through his skin. "Okay, you've seen those two across his eye?" He saw the nods in confirmation. "Little lesson in physics and someone's anatomy: those two run deep before they thin out behind his eye. That trench across his face...if he hadn't have glanced off to the left for some reason, the piece that I dug out of his snout would've killed him right between the eyes. He is one lucky boy!"

Silence fell upon the room before Amadeus broke it even while he was intently fixated on Darien's hand; "How did you come to patch him up?"

Darien starred straight into Prower's lone eye with a deathly expression. "When you happen to meet a blue and green eyed lop, you come to me and I'll share my thoughts about the meaning of life..."

"_LAD!"_

Merlin buckled from the harsh voice that hammered in his head. Darien caught the fox hunching over and slamming his hand across his head as if trying to kill an annoying fly. "Hey, what's up with him..."

"_The bloke to your right just put his hand on his pistol. The one on your left I think just took the safety off..."_

"Uncle, you okay!?" came Tails over the deafening voice.

Shaking his head, Merlin regained his vision back from the swirling blur. "I'm fine nephew. Just a headache."

Darien shook his head before turning his attention back to Amadeus. "Where's your transport at?"

"Down the hill. My son just happened to place it in the middle of a bunch of Hoverbots."

"Yea...those! What luck, eh?"

A slight chuckle. "Yes."

Nodding his head, he winced again when Prower stuck the needle in his hand to make the fifth stitch. "I have spare beds for you to sleep here tonight. My wife's cooking isn't as bad as it smells..."

"...I heard that?" Heather snapped back from down the hall.

"I'm afraid we must decline. We need to get back to Knothole..."

"...Sir," Darien calmly interrupted, placing his good hand on Amadeus'. He sighed before he continued, "your answers need time to be explained. I know...we used to fight against one another a long time ago, but what happened on that hill was the closest thing that brought Mobians and Overlanders together as a whole. Unfortunately, that union was also a well laid trap."

Bowing his head, Amadeus turned to his brother. He was still caressing his head for some reason. "You think Elias won't mind, Merlin?"

"I..."

What Merlin's eyes fell upon next made him stop breathing all together as every nerve in his body turned to ice that the green glow he was seeing couldn't thaw.

The man screamed right in front of his face with Merlin almost tasting the Overlander's burning flesh and boiling blood as the man's body was consumed by a blazing green fire. It was when Merlin saw the Overlander's skull become well defined, as the flesh was completely melted away like a river of oozing wax that smoldered with a crimson and deep emerald afterglow, that the fox closed his frightened eyes to the horrific, burning image in front of him and found himself wanting out.

"If you'll...excuse me please. I need a bit of air," he said with terror in his voice.

Amadeus shifted himself in the chair to see his brother leaving at a brisk pace. "Merlin?"

He never heard his name over his churning stomach and the loud screams that echoed in his head. Reaching the knob to the left door, he slammed his hand on it and began to turn it when his sight drifted towards the ground. Slammed up against the wall was a Fire Ant, his face glowing in the green ambient light of the fire, frozen in terror under his folded brim hat as he stared towards the living room. With sympathy beaming towards the ant, Merlin finally felt the urge to open the door.

The sky looked a sickly pale contrast to the cloudless sky the Overlander girl had slammed the door on. The post energy was brutally strong. Instead of heat filtering into his senses, Merlin felt ice consuming every last vein in his body. Sucking in fresh, clean air that he hoped would ease his petrified mind, he darted to the left, throwing his hood off in the same space of time. It had been over six years since his ears had cowered to the sides of his head. Even longer since he felt himself bristle.

Grinding to a halt he searched the grey sky for something to entertain his thoughts. He wished for blue but the clouds never faded. And so he waited. Praying to Aurora that what came next wouldn't purge his soul of his innocence.

To his wrenching heart, a sobbing gasp of air came weeping beside him. Lowering his head down from the sky, Merlin closed his eyes before slowly turning his anxiety filled face to his left. When he opened them, he was meant by an image that tore at his very soul.

Aleutian stood as he peered at his shaking hands, tears raining down his face over his quivering mouth. His wounds across his muzzle and back had been cauterized, turning into glowing shades of violet, resembling crystals. The blood was still there, still dripping off his body as the Guardian starred straight into his hands.

"_What have I done..."_ Aleutian whimpered out with tearful and guilt ridden eyes. _"...what _have_ I done!?" _he shouted, burring his hands into his face to shun away his vision, crying out hard, deep sobs that shook his body with wails that echoed in the damp air.

When he brought his face up to the sky, Merlin saw the Guardian's welling blue eyes become wide in defeat, surrendering to something that Merlin couldn't fathom until the Guardian spoke; in which after made him loose all barriers to his emotions.

"_Father...I want come home...I want to come home, father."_

* * *

And now...Aleutian comes in from the cold._  
_

* * *


	17. Forever Autumn

* * *

Disclaimer: I observer the original creators rights of their characters and seek no profit from them.

With that said, this is the follow up chapter from "Lost Courage." I'm not going to say much here but instead let you read it through. This chapter I have been planning to write since "Chance Encounters" the first book. I'm now here...and I'm very fortunate to have you come along.

* * *

**Forever Autumn**

By: Mauser

* * *

"_I should've gone home!"_

Aleutian showed his grinding teeth towards the ground, helping him to expel his inner rage with another completed push-up.

"_I should've been there for him!"_

His fists were anchored to the ground as his spiked knuckles dug into the dirt. He dropped his body down, only stopping when his back was perfectly aligned with his legs. He held the pose for more than a second, feeling his biceps burn from the overabundance of the lactic acids building up in his overworked muscles. The pain never fazed him, never commanded the sentient being inside him to stop. Even the idea of counting was far removed from his racing and guilt ridden psyche, hoping as he went along that he could replace one pain with another.

"_You need to stop beating yourself up,"_ echoed Rogue's voice.

He grunted as he lowered himself down again, his fist and face tightening as he fought within himself to cast Rogue's voice of reason aside. But as he lifted back into the air, another filtered through his mind.

"_Have you gone home yet, Aleutian?"_ This time it was Control's voice, her amber diamond eyes still burning the question at his scared face even from weeks past.

He hissed his increasing rage at the leaves below him, relaxing his arms just enough to drop down and hover with his bare, furred chest just mere inches from the ground. His strength was starting to lose out to gravity, his arms shuddering to stay up as he struggled to keep going. He squeezed his face as he lifted himself up, already concluding that he was going to make another attempt, never caring what muscle damage it might cause in the long run.

Sonic's voice filtered in as if the blue hedgehog was there beside him, still pointing squarely at his chest; at his birthright before he turned his back on his people. _"And he was the one who led us!_"

Aleutian barely completed the next set, his arms feeling numb all of a sudden, bearing more than his physical weight as his emotions compounded against himself. Sweat rolled off his back, arms, and face, tracing his long, deep scar across his tempered muzzle before dappling on the leaves below him. It wasn't long before the drops of sweat soon fell as tears. When they came, he surrendered to all his anguish, all his pain and gave into gravity to guide him to the ground with hardly any show of remorse. Slamming his weight across his tucked in arms, he rolled over onto his back, finding comfort within himself to close up into a fetal position, holding himself as if he was trying to keep warm.

The passing wind swayed the overhead branches, tousling the dead leaves on the ground that drowned out his long sobs while chilling his body through and through...

"_...my Guardian."_

Emee's dying whisper ate at his cold heart, making him yearn for her warmth to be back in his caring arms. And there, he lost all control of his tears, letting them fall without any resistence. He slammed his eyes shut from the approaching setting sun, struggling to breathe over his mournful sobs as he tried to force away the voices in his head that felt more of pain than reason.

Where he succeeded only brought his own in return.

"_It finally hurts after all these years,"_ he whimpered in his aching mind. _"What have I become? Is this all I'm going to feel...hurt; bitter...alone when I'm not?"_

A long, wrenching moment passed with his lungs finally settling into rhythmic breaths as they found closure to his troubled sobs. He still felt cold, still kept his eyes shut while daring not to look at the white crest on his chest.

"_...Let her go, friend...let her go." _

Mathias' voice lifted his strained eyelids, his soaked vision blurry at first. But when he cleared his eyes, his trembling face was showered by Locke's sympathetic gaze and gaping mouth. Silence gripped the moving air as father and son locked stares with each other. When Locke finally spoke, his voice sounded as if he was on the verge of losing all control of his emotions as well:

"I'm here for you, my son. Talk to _me_ and I will unders..."

Aleutian cut his father off with an enraged look that swept over his scarred face in a heartbeat. "You will _never_ understand me!"

Locke still held a disarming look but his heart sank deeper into his stomach all the while. "If you just talk to me, I will," he pleaded as he leaned over and offered his hand to help his son off the ground. The favor was savagely returned with a sneering growl and a hurling slap across Locke's offered hand.

"Now you want to talk to me!? You could've done that sooner..."

Locke matched his son's angered expression with his. "It wasn't me who ran away, Aleutian! It wasn't me who had the choice to come home!"

Aleutian rolled over on his hands and knees, seeking the urge to stand over his tempered self. "Then why didn't you take my offer!?" he growled, climbing to his feet with his back turned the whole time.

The elder Guardian stood there, burning a hard stare at his son's shoulders as he fought within himself to speak the truth. He wanted to lie; wanted to shield Aleutian from the truth that the boy had known since he was six. Since he told him of his brother's destiny. But the lies, Locke painfully realized, have done nothing more but divide his family, causing too many irreparable riffs; one especially with Aleutian.

And that was when Locke understood the reason why _he_ needed his son.

"Because I was raising your brother."

Two seething breaths filled Aleutian's tremulous lungs, expelling them through his grinding teeth.

Locke bowed his head with his eyes sagging in remorse. "You were right, Aleutian," he began in a solemn, defeated tone, "you were right after all these years. I should've listened to you the first time...but I didn't...and I'm sorry."

He didn't know why but he felt something lift from his soul, as if the burden of a stale-mated war had suddenly ended with one side surrendering in before the shooting resumed. But he didn't feel any better about it. Searching for the reason in his heart, however, only uncovered more lingering questions that were dormant from times past.

"And you didn't tell Knuckles about me?" he asked bitterly.

"Because I didn't want him to go looking for you. I needed him on the Island."

"And why didn't _you_ come yourself..._my_ offer?"

Locke held a curt pause under his regretful thoughts before he answered.

"I wanted you to find the strength within yourself to come home...I was wanting for _you_ to forgive."

A quick snap of his head brought Aleutian's searing face to the forefront. "And what you said that_ I_ was as good as DEAD!?"

Locke felt his grey beard rustle in the increasing breeze, cooling his welling eyes as he offered his expression as an apology. "There is no excuse in what I said...and there is no excuse for me being so blind. Why it should be me wearing your scars...not you."

His son's face never flinched, never gave into acceptance of his father's apology. Instead, he turned back toward the north, fixing his burning blue eyes on a path through the forest of mature trees, and left his father where he stood, bewildered.

He didn't get far when Locke shouted out to him:

"Aleutian! Don't runaway from me _now_!"

He kept moving, struggling to ignore his father's pleas but failing all the same.

"I'm willing to make amends with you! I'm willing to start over...to help you...to bring out the true Guardian in you..."

Aleutian locked every sore muscle in his body and came to a grinding halt, spinning hard back towards his father:

"I DON"T WANT IT!" he screamed over his tears. With his denial came his heavy gloves, grabbing the fingers and forcing them off his hands one by one, and throwing them to the ground as if they were poisoned fruit, trash; never reflecting that they were gifts from his mother; the one who still believed in him.

Not knowing what to say or do, Locke stood his ground and watched his son skulk away from him, trailing him with his eyes until he saw Aleutian's back disappear through the forest. The waving trees was all that could be heard, there shadows eclipsing into one as the sun's light slowly weakened into darkness. A deep sigh brought him to his son's gloves. Picking them up, he cringed with sadness as he felt Aleutian's warmth leaving them.

"_Where did I go wrong, Archy?"_ Locke asked in the air through telepathy.

It wasn't until a brief moment had passed when the purple smoke came and dissipated with Locke feeling the added weight or Archimedes' boots resting on his shoulder. Raising his heavy eyes, he lumbered a glance to his former mentor, seeing that the ant's face wasn't far removed from his.

"Follow him, Locke...just follow him."

And with that he did, weaving through the cluster of trees and light undergrowth as he searched out his son. Picking up the rest of Aleutian's belongings, Locke's eyes fell to the leaf littered ground in pain as he felt his son's.

* * *

His soreness and aching joints kept him from running this time, even when his heart urged him to bolt clear away from everything. Aleutian's growing frustrations replaced to wanting to lash out at a tree beside him, but guilt of harming something that didn't do anything to further his pain stopped him from slamming his naked fist into it. Instead, he stalked through the forest, finding paths as if he knew where to go...as if he'd been there once before...

Aleutian stopped dead and sized up the small trail before him. Rough trunks of cedar trees lined the narrow, twisting path with other numerous species of trees scattered in the landscape. It floated to him on the wind, piercing his silk, crimson fur and spawning goose-bumps underneath his hidden skin. There, his vision went blurry as past memories flowed into his fragile mind, grabbing his heart and emotions that called for his tears that he didn't want to rain down across his face.

"_I have been here before,"_ he painfully realized. The walk up the steep grade as Locke told him of his brother's fetes, his death, his resurrection. Decaying leaves crunching under his shoes offering their sounds as a leap from one memory to the next, making his surroundings become all to familiar in the heartfelt moment. Yet it looked matured somehow; older, taller. Like him! He tried to find the meaning in what he was seeing. Tried to reason why his mind didn't feel euphoric about his surroundings. He wished it, wanted it...longed for it; only becoming crushed when he didn't feel it over his contemptuous thoughts for being brought back.

Not believing the coincidence the second time around, he pushed on, his troubled heart guiding him along the way.

* * *

"_Where are we, Archy?"_

Archimedes' eyes never strayed from the path, his face somber but yet afraid somehow with the passing wind. _"Remember what I said last night...when I asked you if you wanted to continue on with this?"_

"_Yes?"_ Locke said as he navigated around some saplings.

The Fire Ant ended up shaking his head, casting what he wanted to say back into the furthest reaches of his mind._ "Just keep after him," _he finally whispered in the air.

* * *

The trail branched off into many as the trees became less clustered. But even so, Aleutian was finding his way, passing mature trees that he remembered were once mere saplings over seven years ago. Ducking under a low lying branch, Aleutian slipped to the right of a large maple tree before weaving to the left of an older pine. Looking beyond the thinning forest that sprouted boulders as if Aurora had thrown them blindly, he felt his lungs begin to seize, for the clearing he saw far ahead made every nerve in his body shiver.

"_...I'm over here, Aleutian!"_

Every bone and muscle locked into place, stopping Aleutian dead as he threw his senses to the wind. "Emee?" he breathed out, searching the land all around him with his wide, blue eyes. She wasn't there. Only the wavering trees filled his yearning sight at that moment.

Leaves were lifted from the ground on the wind, some gliding passed Aleutian as he followed a few with his gaping stare, wondering if her voice was a trick of his mind. He took a breath, then another...slower and deeper than the first. It was as if they were calling to him, beckoning him to go forward, showing a path which he needed to take.

"_...Allleeuuuttiiiann..."_

Her faint voice floated to his ears, calling him onward with his inner self not believing what he was hearing. As another passing breeze carried more leaves with the moving air, Aleutian swallowed the tightness in his throat, and answered the wind with a determined stride.

* * *

"Did you hear that?" Locke fightingly asked.

Archy's voice was above a whisper when he replied, "Aye, mate."

"What's going on then, Archy?" he festered, struggling within himself to push onwards. The answer he got threw all his thoughts to the increasing wind.

"You ought to see this place during the fall, Locke...It's a paradise."

Locke shot a quick glance across his shoulder, his face wearing his emotions evenly. "What do you mean?"

Archy never spoke, his concentration seeming someplace else as his eyes wondered in sadness.

* * *

Aleutian wanted to weep along with it. Towering up to the furthest reaches of the forest canopy, it seemingly posed as a monument to lay testament that it was a far greater species of tree than what grew beside it. Aleutian's eyes slowly watered as he took in the long, stringy vines and leaves of the weeping willow tree, beckoning him to cry along with it. He wanted to, felt the paralyzing urge to make good on his emotions; but he held on, waiting for reasons he didn't know.

A moment passed as echoing memories filtered into his yearning mind again, filling him with anguish that suppressed his soreness.

"_I think I love, Aleutian. Please tell me I'm not wrong...that I'm not dreaming this."_

He felt his knees wanting to collapse under him, wanting him to fall to the ground along with his tears.

"_Why dad...why do this to me?"_ Aleutian breathed out in his psyche. When he heard his father's bolt laced boots crunch the leaves behind him, he slowly pivoted around and bared his trembling, angered face.

Locke wanted to match Aleutian's temper but something inside him told him to forget it, to show himself as nonchalantly for reason's sake and not for resolve. And he did.

"For you to remember of who _you_ are, Aleutian. For me to know who my son is."

"BUT HERE!?" Aleutian screamed, his fist balling along with his body. "Where she touched me!?"

"Is it not the better part of your life?" Locke retorted cautiously, "can you at least share that with me? Can you at least give me a reason why you won't let go...why you won't stop the pain in your heart which I feel in you!"

Aleutian held his maliced pose, coldly shifting his seething blue eyes for something other than his father's. The wind seemingly kicked up with it, sending shivers down Locke's rigid spine that commanded him to drop Aleutian's gloves, jacket and pack.

"I hold the deaths of people in my memory, father," Aleutian quietly whispered all of a sudden, catching the two off guard. He never looked at them when he spoke, saving his haunted stare for the ground instead of his father. "I still..." He couldn't fend off the feeling to cry, swallowing only to boost his aching head to speak, "I still hear their screams in my dreams. I still see the blood that..." A mournful choke expelled from his throat as tears caressed his face as if they were trying comfort him. "...that I feel as if I can't wash away from my hands."

"Don't go blaming yourself for their deaths, lad," Archimedes said above a whisper.

Aleutian buried a hand into his right eye, forcing a tight grimace across his scared face as he savagely shook his head. "How can I not?"

"You didn't see it coming, lad. No one saw it coming. From back home, to Knothole; not even Lopper saw it coming. It was a well planned deception from the get-go."

The moping echidna took a quivering breath. "Then why can't I purge these nightmares from my head. Why can't I stop the screams?" Aleutian held a long silence over the growing wind. "Why do I still feel that she's in my arms...dying? You know how helpless that is...knowing that the power I had within in me could have saved her!? Could have saved _many_!"

"You still have that power, son. You just need guidance to wield it–"

"NO!"

Locke felt the venom from Aleutian's rage course through his veins like dry-ice. He beckoned himself to say something that would calm his son, but instead, his gaze wandered to the weeping willow, somehow becoming hypnotized with its flowing feathered leaves. The humbling view thawed the crushed feelings of that strained moment in time. He saw the long leaves as strings to an instrument–a violin he thought; the floating autumn leaves in the wind resembling the bow that slide across the strings, whispering a gilded song to him. But when he peered into Aleutian's angered eyes, the song went hoarse, depressing.

Weeping.

"I'm only trying to help you," he finally whispered with lowering eyes. "I wish you could see past that; see that I want you back in my life. Back in ours."

"And why should I?" Aleutian snapped back, baring his scared face along with his tears. "You two have brought me nothing but pain. Made me decide between my love and my family." He paused as he took in a deep seething breath that overpowered the rushing air. "Made me who I am today–nothing but a cold blooded murderer!"

"The only people who you are murdering, Aleutian, are those whom you've kept oppressed in your mind. If you can't relinquish their own story of the last hours of their lives, then you are no different than the traitors whom you've rightfully killed." Locke forced down a hard swallow. "I've looked passed those deeds, son. We all have looked past those dark deeds. We've forgiven you. You just need to forgive yourself. You can start by honoring your lost friends. Honor their courage...honor their sacrifice.

Honor _her_."

It was if a divine hand had reached into the furthest reaches of his skull and pulled out long deceased memories and resurrected them. Faces, voices, meaningful words; they all raced through his mind at a frantic pace. Aleutian should've felt comfort behind them–longed for it–but the spark he was seeking never came. The spark to bring warmth back into his heart.

With the emptiness came darkness as he slammed his welling eyes closed, only feeling the strong wind and swirling leaves licking at his body. He felt his inner-rage shiver deep within his soul from it. The same rage that cost three Overlander's their lives and produced an aftermath of continued bloodshed before an eight year old's voice brought reason over vengeance.

And with that voice brought a dream he'd once had; remembering it as if he'd just dreamt it at that bitter hour. He remembered finding himself standing on the battlefield, looking up the mound and seeing the freshly decapitated tank smoldering on the top ridge. Chard and mangled Mobian bodies–his friends–scattered across the moonscape land, their blood and spilled organs mixing with the mud. He felt sadness embalm his heart in the dream, coldly followed by loneliness before a long distant voice echoed to him in the grey morning. It had awakened him, as if calling him to go from one world to the next. And there he collapsed his head into his hands after realizing she wasn't beside him in their bed, longing for her comfort after his nightmare. Was that the spark? Was that the key? To tell what happened over two years ago.

Or was it to tell him that he didn't belong? That he didn't belong there...or here.

"Why, Archy?" he crudely whispered, opening his searing eyes and beaming a cold stare directly at the Fire Ant. "Why didn't you just leave me to _die_!"

Archimedes felt every strain of fiber in his body freeze in terror, only his hands seeking one of Locke's dreads to hold onto from the beating wind. "Don't say that, Aleutian."

"I would've been better off!" he screamed amidst crying.

Locke couldn't help but stare at his weeping son, trying to offer his sympathies but losing out to his own tears. "And where would've that left me?" he begged from the deepest crevasse of his heart. "Where would have that left your _true_ family?

"Knowing how much of a liar you are!" came Aleutian's pitched vitriolic voice, his eyes eaten with acid that seemed to spill out over his blemished face and his crudely pointed finger.

Everything was spinning out of control in Locke's mind. When he stole a glance to Archimedes, he saw his old friend wasn't far off from the same conclusion. He tried to reason with everything he had, abandoning the past and asking only for his son to see into the future. To see past wrongs and honor the virtues and rights that needed to be bestowed to help find closure in every sense of the meaning. But instead, he lead his son back to old pains. Lead him deeper into the cold.

"_I should have listened to you Archy..."_

"I'm sorry, my son," Locke said in defeat, bowing his head in the course of the rightful apology.

"That doesn't cut it!" Aleutian barked, making his father's head shoot up while casting a hurtful expression to Aleutian before strangely transforming to one of disbelief as he gazed beyond his son's shattered face.

Aleutian's pain in his heart forced any notion of reason aside in his aching psyche, only trumping his bittered thoughts to his mouth:

"I'm threw with this! I'm threw with _all_ this!" Rustling leaves behind him stroked his back, but he didn't care, only raising his voice higher to overpower the strong wind. "I should've made good on blowing my brains out, yesterday! I should've DIED two years ago!" He forced down a series of tearful breaths. "I wish I was _dead_!" he cried out before taking in a lasting breath. "I WISH YOU'D JUST KILL–"

"_...Alleeuuutttiiaaannn..."_

It seemed every last molecule of air expelled from his lungs in a mournful sigh as his hardened face collapsed into one of anguish before disbelief.

"_...Alleeuuttiiaannn...my love...my Guardian..."_

Archy found himself stammering in his thoughts, mesmerized at the sight that lay before them. _"Locke?"_

"_I'm not doing a thing,"_ the elder echidna replied in disbelief.

Seeing their bewildered expressions forced Aleutian's eyes to shut. He wanted to turn around, her sweet voice beckoned him to, but the urge died; suffocated by his guilt.

"_Aleutian..."_

"Emee?" he said above a whisper, his head lowered as if he was sentenced to death.

"_I'm here, my equal,"_ she taunted to him.

A faint spark from his heart leaped into his head and commanded his left foot to pivot on the leafy ground. A trembling, mournful breath passed as he timidly turned his aching body to the willow tree. Warmth followed; ecstacy to a yearning mind. He couldn't look up, couldn't open his eyes, feeling of what he said had shamed him from ever looking at her again...if she was there.

"_It's okay, my love...I am here."_

Her soothing voice was more than enough to lift Aleutian's glistening blue eyes. Her radiant textures flourished amongst the swirling leaves in his sight. Her dreads, her silk draping hair...her comforting smile; they all floated on the wind. Aleutian gave no care as to why or how she was there, only that she was _there_.

"_I'm sorry, Aleutian,"_ she said softly, her smile fading to sorrow; to sympathy.

"Don't be," he whimpered. "Just come back to me. I need you, Emi-La...more than ever in my life."

Her reply shattered him; _"I can't, Aleutian."_

"No!" he choked out, "if my brother can come back then so can you." His eyes welled up, drowning his scared face as he fought the urge to release his emotions. "Don't do this to me..."

"_...Let go, my Guardian."_

Locke held his breath, his heart thumping at his chest wall that brought on his tears. He waited; hoping.

Aleutian's reply came low in a whisper. "No, I won't do that to you."

"_Let gooo...for your family."_

He shook his head, relaxing his hands at his sides. "I can't," he whimpered from his quivering jaw. "I won't."

"_Let go, Aleutian...for me...for yourself..."_

With her trailing voice piercing into his mind, he looked to himself, retracing everything he'd done over the long, depressing years that had gone so slowly by.

"_...I love you, Aleutian."_

He looked beyond the darkness; fought hard to look for himself...his old self. The warmth was there. He felt it; yearned for it. All he had to do was follow it.

"_...come in, my love."_

Memories became the path: watching himself touch his sleeping brother in the crib; Chester Drake keeping the blankets warm and bundled on his ill body as he told sea stories of his father; the loving equal who kept his promise; the autumn.

"_Let go..."_

But he couldn't.

"Please come back to me, Emee. Be in my _arms_," he tearfully pleaded. "I feel lost without you."

His tears soon began to cool as the wind picked up. To his dismay, she beamed a warm smile before her textures started to dissipate with the drifting leaves. Her locks went first followed by her hair, lips and to Aleutian's crushing heart, her tranquil gaze filtering from his sight. He watched the leaves float away from him down a path to his right...feeling as if he was being robbed of her again.

But to his aching soul, she still called out to him.

"_...Allleeeuuuutttiiiaannn...leeet gooo..."_

"NOO!" he screamed at the top of his choking lungs.

With his bawling soul aching inside his heart, it numbed his aching joints and told him to run; to follow her. He bolted down the weathered trail, breathing hard as he fought to keep up with the drifting leaves. Locke's voice shouted out to him, asking him to stay. But Aleutian didn't hear it, only to be drowned out by his own:

"Emee!"

Her voice came back to him, sounding as if she was dying with the breeze:

"_...Leeett gooo..."_

He pumped faster, traversing the winding trail with a determined, grieving face. Something told him that the path was going to level, and it did. Trees became bunched together, darkening the ground further from the coming night. Boulders littered the terrain a few yards later, the ground hardening under his trampling feet. Suddenly, his eyes became focused, tracing the trail till it ended in front of a wall of foliage. But yet, he could make out a hole, one wide enough that he could slip through with ease. He never slowed, becoming so fixated with the leaves that he didn't hear himself yell out to stop as he bolted through the hole.

His day old shoes slid across the smooth ledge, grinding Aleutian to a breathtaking halt before he plunged into a gaping canyon. He stood in silence, breathing deeper over his sobs as his eyes watched the dead autumn leaves that his soul wanted to touch scatter in the wind, falling to the wooded canyon below as some flew to the other side.

Seven years, he tearfully realized; it had been seven years since he'd been there at that very spot...with her, stargazing through the night.

"_...leeet goo...my Guardian..."_

Aleutian's burden finally became too much for his waning emotioned strength. Her lasting voice seeped through his ears as a calling for his knees to give way. And when they did, so did his tears; all crashing on the stone mantle as he buried his weeping face into his furred arms. In the darkness of his sight didn't come Emi-La nor his long dead friends that he was hoping to find, but instead...his true family...his father by his side, his mother giving him a warm smile, and Knuckles, his brother, fully grown and looking to him for guidence with pride instilled in his body and on his face.

A deep breath brought Aleutian's head up, cringing his face at the darkening sky as he sagged his arms to the ground in defeat.

"I LOVE YOU!"

He let his mouth gape open, letting the salt droplets of his tears find their way into his mouth. And with another long, deep breath...he felt his very soul surrender as he shouted his undying love at the coming night:

"I LOVE YOU!"

* * *

Locke's sobs were drowned out by his son's echoing voice as he braced himself with his hands planted on the willow tree. Wiping his tears away, his blurred sight caught something that his right hand had uncovered. Hidden under the growing moss was a letter...an "_I_"he realized. It was crudely etched in from years past but he didn't see the point in how it was imprinted. Instead, he saw something else below it. He had to rub away more of the moss to see it, but when he did, his warrior-self collapsed into a flurry of weeping sobs that lasted through the fading sun light.

Inscribed below the "_I_" was an etched heart...below it, his son's name.

* * *

Night slid on her gallant cloak, snuffing out all semblance of light, save for the final quarter moon and the flickering stars. It was there that Aleutian never left his cross legged position on the ledge, lost in his thoughts in which Locke never intruded. His son deserved them that night. Instead, he stood idly by, becoming a sentry to his son's domain as he waited for him to retreat for the night. In that presence of mind, however, he joyously smiled as he felt warmth this time. Warmth within his son that he hoped would last through the night as he waited for him to come back.

Aleutian never left the rocky mantel that night...and Locke understood.

* * *

I thought the ending was a little to cliche' but I wanted to show Locke's feelings out of this. My main stay for this story at the beginning was to center it on "just" Aleutian. However to my benfite and my audience, more characters came to mind, a better plot, and a better idea. But I still wanted to focus a good portion of this on Aleutian...which I have, but yet again, something came along with it. How would a Locke try to pick up where he left off with his runaway sun and feel at the same time? With that notion, I have expanded the horizons to Locke's feelings and thoughts along with Aleutian's. It's been an intresting ride for me as I hope it has for you. Now, the story isn't over...far from it. All we have seen is Aleutian surrendering...letting go.

The chapter title is actually a song. Look it up and you all shall be plesently surprised.

Please review; I see my skill and style picking up as I mold the rest of this story. It might be another long while before I post up another chapter. I am getting well behind in my work. Usually I have maybe 3 to 5 chapters on the chopping block to be edited and post them up as soon as I get one completed. However, I JUST started on the next one, so it will be a while before I update. I'm still committed to my loyal readers. I don't know who yall are, but I see your numbers.

Thank-you.

* * *


	18. Nocturne Conversations

* * *

Hello everyone. Sorry for the long period of inaction. Been rather busy as of late. But good news, a new chapter.

I tried my best to describe Shadow's feelings and outwardly mood in this. I told a of what I was doing with him and St. John and he said it could never work. He was plesently surprised after he read this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Sonic characters.

Enjoy.**  
**

* * *

**Nocturne Conversations**

By: Mauser

* * *

Those red, hard eyes could put the fear into anyone. Even for Commander Geoffrey St. John of His Majesty's Secret Service. But he held calmness all the while holding his turning stomach at bay, plus doing an impressive job at keeping the same deadpan face as Shadow the Hedgehog. It was one thing to see the _Ultimate Life Form_ run practically unchallenged around Mobius at Eggman's leisure, battle Aleutian–which to Geoffrey didn't seem much of a fight due in part to the echidna's physical state–and in particular able to wield powers that his crossbow absolutely had no chance to match. But knowing all this while that same hedgehog sat no more than three feet in front of him, and only separated by a cluttered desk was very unnerving for St. John. With a sigh at the walnut boarded walls, and letting the chairs have their last creaks in the silent, heavy air, St. John finally began:

"So you managed to come after all?"

Shadow's face never flinched from its deadpan pose, keeping his arms closed. It told St. John right off that he wasn't really in the mood to talk._"So why's he even here at all?"_

"I try to keep to my word," the black hedgehog answered back at last in a dead monotone.

"Well, that's jolly good of 'yea," the skunk said with a semblance of a smile, "at least we're making progress there."

A snort and a slouching shift in his chair. "If you say so."

What smile St. John had, died. Turning to his paper work, he searched for a clean sheet and took a pen from a coffee mug that sat next to a picture of a beautiful black cat with her white chest covered under a red vest, her light green eyes casting a salacious glimmer all the while her nonchalant smile soothed his weary mind. St. John tried his hardest to not make the office an established residency, but alas, the last blue glow of the sun leaving the waving slits of Knothole City's forest canopy darkened his window and his mood. A banker's lamp radiated from the center of his desk, making the wooden walls feel a bit more dingy. _"Sorry Hershey, luv, I'll be late tonight."_

"Alright, Shadow," Geoffrey continued on, his pen at the ready, "let's start out with your last ordered task with Eggman. Where were you and what were you doing before A.D.A.M. sent the false message for you to get back to New Robotropolis?"

A short pause. "I thought you would ask for something better?"

"Everything that you tell me will be crucial to what goes on here–just one step at a time."

"What I was getting at was the Eggfleet or his new production strength–"

"I can get those just by satellite feeds, mate!" St. John snapped.

Shadow bled a treacherous smirk. "Or your hidden operatives around Mobius?"

St. John kept his face even, however, the sentient spy within him was cursing and blaspheming almost uncontrollably. He honestly knew he didn't have to hide it. Shadow's comment was a well planned trump card, one that St. John figured would have come out sooner or later. But still, he viewed people in and around Knothole City as two types; cleared or not cleared. Shadow, for obvious reasons that didn't take an average civilian to figure out, was on the latter of the lists.

Which made the skunk all the more worried and suspicious with what the black hedgehog knew.

"How many do you know?" he finally asked, shifting his pen around nervously in his fingers.

Shadow relaxed his posture. "Enough to tell you that you might want to start bringing some in."

St. John made a priority mental note to come back to that, stomached his professional anxiety, and continued on; "What was your last mission with Eggman?"

"What's so important about it?" Shadow retorted dryly.

"Because, I would like to know why Aleutian was hunting _you_?" St. John said, leaning forward, further in his chair.

"Oh...him," scoffed the hedgehog, "that would have been one dead echidna if Knuckles hadn't stopped him–"

"And if you'd met the chap sooner, you would've been one _dead_ hedgehog!"

Shadow let it go at that. Cocking his head slightly to release the imaginary strain in his neck, his expression fell back into one of not caring. "So what do you want to know?"

"Where were you and what were you doing before the transmission from A.D.A.M?"

"I was searching for Mammoth Mogul and Ixis Naugus," Shadow replied hesitantly. "I didn't get far, though, so what information I can give you is meaningless."

Geoffrey shifted in the chair, his beret off his head for once, fully exposing his wavy hair. "But they have escaped the Egg Grapes?"

"Yes." Shadow said, hidding his impatience as the Commander scribbled his notes. When a tap of the pen symbolized a period was marked, the hedgehog lifted his chin up as if a fighter was ready for the beat down.

"Let's talk about the underground," Geoffrey said in a firm, but tired voice.

"Yeah...you all are losing–"

"That's_NOT_ what I meant!" jumped St. John, stopping himself short from pounding the ball point pen on top of his desk. Interrogations–which this has now become–are tricky matters. They require patience as a chess player would need, along with a strategy. Geoffrey had been involved with enough to know to have a plan formulated even before he got the file of the subject he was about to interview. The chore could be simple or it could be so boring that one needed to slap themselves silly to stay awake. And they were doing the questioning. But in the end, the objective was always the same and always at the forefront: retrieve information that they have that you don't. Thinking back for an instant, he should've been the one interrogating Rogue rather than Knuckles and the Chaotix–though he had high admiration for Knuckles and Julie-Su, and a growing soft spot for his brother. However, the Bat is a spy and a thief wrapped up into one tight figure. She knows the rules, the tricks of the trade, and possibly has experienced more than one questioning from other interesting figures in the spy rings. But with time, St. John and possibly with some help from his wife, Hershey, Rogue would've broken and devulged more information than what Knuckles could've retrieved. Everyone breaks; that was the unwritten rule.

Which brings Shadow. A smug smile came and went from his expressionless face and at once, St. John knew this was going to be one of those hard cases–in more ways than one. The information was there, willing to be released..._willing_, but that brief smile just made the evening longer. _"The bloke is getting his kicks out of this at MY expense!"_

"The underground, Shadow. Aleutian informed us that he was hunting you through the underground movement using Ebony Hare as a contact and leverage to get to you. I can see the motive, but I am very interested in what _your_ operations consisted of while working for Eggman. Were you a _laundry boy_, a meet and greeter, or...?" St. John shrugged his shoulders and hands as a come-on for the hedgehog.

"Muscle," Shadow said after a moments calculated pause, "sometimes I had to knock some heads around to get what I needed."

"What do you mean _your_ needs? What about Eggman's? He was pulling your strings the whole time..._right_?"

Shadow shrugged his shoulders that expressed the same movement from his quills. "Yea, so?"

St. John pressed forward against his desk, but never leaning too far to give the black hedgehog a sense of some spatial comfort. "So it didn't bother you?" he asked very inquisitively, holding his questioning brows up. "I mean, you were being _used_ with your very history as a taunting bait so Eggman could make you do his bidding." St. John let his sentence hang as a light bulb clicked on in his head. "Or was _that_ your needs?"

A shrug of the shoulders before Shadow crossed his arms over his white furred chest sealed the deal. St. John had struck a nerve that now furthered his progress. On the other hand, he was about to question the hedgehog's loyalty, for his motives for choosing sides seemed to shift with the wind, but the way those red eye's of his broke away from St. John's, darted slightly to the right, and briefly scoured the walls before staring back at him, told something else entirely that St. John was rather surprised to see. Self-guilt. He could clearly see that Shadow was inwardly loathing of being used. But he couldn't understand why the game? Was it his way, or was he sizing up Geoffrey? Or was it what the skunk thought all along; just for kicks? He honestly didn't know at that moment. All he could do was ask and wait for the true replies in the hedgehog's body language.

"Mustn't felt good to be taken for a ride, eh?" he sneered, playing his English accent a little rougher for a wanting response. It worked to his satisfaction.

"I knew what I was getting into," Shadow replied a little annoyed.

"But how long were you willing to take it? I mean, the abuse and frustrations of not seeing any results must've driven you mad, mate. That chaos business wasn't _really_ the turning point, was it? Knocking heads around, and all...you had to feel you were _above_ that, right?"

"I didn't care," came the rude answer.

"Rubbish–you had to. After all, you have _chaos control_. Just being an errand-boy with that power must've been trivial, at best."

"And if it was?"

"And if it was, then why keep being Eggman's puppet for as along as you did?"

Shadow's arms relaxed across his white furred chest, St. John at the ready with his scribing device. "I had no other choice. He had the disk, you all didn't, so I went with him."

"So does that mean we can count on you turning your back on us when _our_ use runs out with you?"

"Possibly."

"_Liar."_ St. John scoffed in the air. _"That look said otherwise."_

"So, who were these blokes you were muscling? Anyone in particular you can remember?"

"No, not really."

"Why?"

Shadow shrugged once more. "Was none of my businessafterwards. They didn't pay when they needed to, Eggman shows me a picture and some stupid codename, and I go after 'em. They paid up almost as soon as they saw me. I'm surprised some of them are actually doing what they're doing."

St. John furnished a disarming smirk. "Skiddish, I take it?"

"If you call it that," Shadow said, nodding slightly.

St. John lifted his pen and jotted down the brief summary before raising his head and continued on. "Locations by chance?"

"All over. Some of the bigger pay-ups were in Station Square. Those people can be ruthless, so watch your tail."

Geoffrey nodded as he wrote. Setting down his pen after a few short handed notes, he pondered briefly if he should choose a different avenue of questioning. He honestly at this point didn't know if Shadow was purposely withholding information, or yet again, playing games. _"Course, he could be telling the truth too,"_ he added to himself. Shadow's guilt laden glance played back in St. John's mind. He couldn't ignore it for one reason or another.

"Where is this money going to, and why does he even need it? That's something I _really_ don't understand since most of his resources come from his conquests."

Shadow's glance was expected, asking if the skunk had any intelligence. "I'd figure it be obvious to _you_!"

"_It is, but keep talking, chap!"_ St. John scoffed to himself, cocking his head as if he was wanting to be educated.

Shadow continued on, fidgeting in his chair in annoyance. "Pay-offs to his spies and goons. Why do you think it's called the–"

"Have you met any of those blokes?" Geoffrey cut-in calmly.

"Not that I know of."

"Okay, so let me get this straight. You've gone around Mobius, clunking heads of sorts, made sure pay-offs were given to Eggman, but when it comes down to his spies and goons, you're left in the dark? But, you see Shadow," St. John snidely launched, "he gives some metal hedgehogs that look just like Sonic, and sends them _and_ you to Knothole to ruff up the place. I feel like I've missed out on something, you know?"

"Like what!?" Shadow hotly replied.

Geoffrey held his exaggerated bemusing face all the while smiling deviously inward. "Well...why all the roughing up jobs? Why not use your abilities instead of collecting money and powerless enemies?" he said, referring to Mogul and Ixis Naugus. Their true powerful-selves were nothing more than a new goal in their lives to reconquer.

It was here that Shadow lay silent, tucking his arms across his chest once more and digging his chin down almost at the same spot. He looked like a pouty kid all of a sudden to Geoffrey, just meaner with those drawn red eyes and black quills. The answer was in this posture this time; he'd been used and now his brain had fully come to grips with it. St. John got Shadow to where he needed him; mad and looking for vengeance to grind his teeth on.

"Okay, what about this Egg Fleet?" he asked finally, retreating back into a semblance of a slouch in the chair.

"What about it? You said you can get satellite feeds," Shadow retorted, matching St. John's posture.

"How about his plans for it? Is he ahead of schedule, behind, his production plans overall?...you've had to 've seen something?"

A slight shake of the head brought more frustrations to St. John. "He's hammering them out as fast as his machines can manage. But plans, I don't know."

"Rubbish! You were there. You had access to his computers--"

"It was limited!"

"Anything as a glance you can remember then?"

Shadow held a pregnant pause before he shook his head. "Eggman kept me out of the loop for reasons that are obvious."

"Tell me anyways."

"Well, he doesn't trust Mobians, and he sure didn't trust me, and I knew it...I knew it from the beginning. Why do you think he sent me out so much?...to keep me away and do brainless jobs. I'm sure he planned for me to switch sides..." A devious smile formed across his lips, "but Snively's hair wasn't part of the plan."

"Then why did they track you here with his follicles? Seems like they had you in the bag."

"No...the runt just has an attachment to his hair," Shadow quipped, sporting a chuckle all the same. St. John was about to join in until the hedgehog's smile abruptly ended, his face eerily serious all of a sudden. "Him, I can tell you about."

"Oh? What about Snively?"

"He's no fool, and if I were you, I'd watch him more closely than the fat-man."

"How so? I know he hates being a lackey at times, and he switches sides as well as you."

St. John's remark didn't produce anything of show of bitterness. "That mind of his is going all the time, and he shows no restraint in force, as you've seen. Consider it a feeling that he has something always up his sleeves."

"Did you take any orders from him?"

"No. Eggman handled me, mostly. I kept away from Snively unless I _had_ to."

St. John annotated the information down and said, "How's his mood been when Eggman is not around?"

"Angry you might say, but he seems calm about it."

Geoffrey wearily nodded his head. _"He's thinking...being a lackey and thinking is very dangerous." _Placing his pen down, he looked out the window and frowned. Between the hot air that was being passed around, and his rump aching from the chair, St. John stood up and waved his hand to the door. "Let's take a breather, mate."

The journey to the door and out to the raised, wooden walkway was a relief. St. John could only smile as he leaned on the railing with his arms and took in Knothole as one might look a bustling city from a roof top. His office was tucked into one of the larger trees, and sat high, close to the branches. Brief outings from his desk were taken liberally, since some of his operational work had slowed, and the fresh air was more than enough to soothe his eyes and mind from the reports he had to pour over daily. Shadow on the other hand, stood like he always has: arms to his sides, and expressionless. Geoffrey wondered if the hedgehog ever knew how to relax.

"So now that you know _who_you are, what are you going to do now?" he asked sincerely. He noticed the question threw Shadow totally off just by the way he looked at him.

"I don't know...I have some questions that I need to go search the answers for."

"_Purpose_?"

A cocked head and a shrug face. "You can say that."

St. John turned his attentive gaze back at the wooden city below them. Sighing he said, "Wish you'd remember something, Shadow. A code name, operation, troop strengths, what Eggman has for breakfast...shoot, a love letter could be a big help to us right now. The man hates us and wants us all dead. Even you, I'm afraid. It's nothing personal, you know, but he just doesn't like us Mobians. Your use to him would have run out. He probably would have showed you Gerald's disk and probably stuck you in one of his Egg Grapes and sucked you dry as payment. I hope you see where I'm coming from with this?" St. John took in a deep breath. "Anything you can possibly remember could help us dearly. Consider it as...retribution for what he has done to you."

Shadow said nothing for a brief moment, only staring down at his own spot in thought. A few Mobians were making their way back to their huts and nooks, all finding closure from the day and preparing for the next in their own unique way.

"I didn't pay hardly any attention to his inner workings. I knew he was going to hide things from me, so I just took it as that and went on doing what he asked of me. I only had one thing on my mind–"

"I can understand that, mate."

"Do you?" Shadow questioned with his brows risen. "Becoming awake in a different time almost seems like a different world...a different life. I have no allegiance, Geoffrey, cause those who made me and loved me are gone. I'm almost having to start all over again, and I don't know where to begin. Eggman is something as close to a family as I have...and I was used by him. So, do you think you can understand me? Do you really know what I am going through?"

St. John was taken aback for an instant. He tried to put himself in Shadow's shoes, however, he realized that the hedgehog was right, he really didn't understand. _"But I think Knuckles' brother might."_ He withheld his remorseful face at the thought of Aleutian. Everyone had to have heard the Guardian's death wish from yesterday, and it troubled St. John the most.

"No, mate," he finally said, "I don't. But maybe you can understand us?"

Shadow lay silent once more with gears turning in his head as he fought to remember things. His indifferent pose collapsed on the railing, holding himself up with his arms the same way St. John was. He'd found himself on occasion venturing away from his tempered conscious as he felt he was doing now, giving into a subliminal temptation of sadness that only lasted for a few moments, seeking it as a refuge from his turbulent self before either going to sleep or going before Eggman for his next useless assignment. Yes. He remembered finding himself in that train of self-expulsion, wondering if everything he had been doing was a waste of time as he stared long and hard at Eggman's backside. He felt the compulsion to kill him right then and there. The fat-man with his grossly long mustache and bulk torso were nothing more than a sitting target to Shadow, just standing there and studying a large screen with his hand under his nose. He would've never known Shadow was behind him until the black hedgehog shouted "Chaos Control" and zapped his blubber-butt to the next world. But he stopped himself cold when the thought of his reward and hoping the next outing would bring halted his action. Shadow could see where he was possibly going just from the story and a half tall screen. He'd been around Mobius long enough that his geography of the planet was almost permanently etched into his brain, and so much so that a blinking dot somewhere near the Badlands ruled out his next assignment at that moment. Maybe that was why he was thinking of doing Eggman in. Maybe that was why he felt degrading at that instant, seeing his puppet master staring at that blinking dot for what seemed like a life time before turning around. He almost seemed hypnotized by it.

Like it was speaking to him...

"There is something," he said evenly, his bold, expressionless face coming back. "I caught a glimpse of his operations board one day. I didn't think nothing of it, but he was locked with something on it."

"What was it? Do you remember?" St. John asked calmly, but eager.

Shadow shrugged. "I don't remember. It was something big, I can tell you that much."

"Oh?"

"Yea, he switched it off in a hurry...probably didn't want me to see it."

"Has he left it up before while you were present?" asked St. John, his stare narrowing in puzzlement.

"Yea, but this wasn't the first time...I just caught him napping on that one."

St. John curtly nodded. "Can you remember where it was if I showed you a map?"

"I think so. Someplace in the Badlands."

Another nod. "Okay, tell you what Shadow. Sleep on it and come back to me tomorrow and hopefully you might have a better picture of things. Sound good?"

Shadow solemnly bowed his head. "Yeah."

"Alright."

St. John watched the hedgehog twitch his head one last time before he took his leave. He didn't let him get more than a few paces when he called out one last time. "Oh, and Shadow."

The hedgehog stopped and peered over his shoulder. "Yeah?" he said evenly.

With a comforting smile, St. John expressed something that he was sure Shadow had never heard.

"Thank-you."

* * *

It wasn't long before St. John ducked back into his office, pulled up his typewriter that had seen better paper over the years, and hammered away at the keys, transcribing his notes and then typing up an observation order that was sure to go to the Brain Trust and Nicole. Shadow didn't pinpoint the location, but the Badlands wasn't a very easy place to hid something man or Mobian made. If he'd hurry, he might get the order done so a night pass-over could be completed and use the inferred to its fullest. That and see–

"Hey, Geoffrey!"

Hershey's cool, but demanding voice startled him in the most peculiar way. He didn't snap-to from muscle memory or reflexes, but instead, looked up from his work with a guilty expression. Her left shoulder was leaned up against the door frame, all the while her eyes beaming a scathing look at Commander Geoffrey St. John, who now felt no tinier than a flee. "Hello, 'luv. Bit busy but I 'shaln't be long."

To his satisfaction, she relaxed right down to an easy stance. That was something he truly loved about her. "Something going on?"

A weary shake of the head. "Everything, Hershey."

"Well, it must be something good to keep you away again. Please tell me you're not going to establish residency here?"

"No, 'luv...that I intend not to do." He sighed at his almost completed work and looked back up to Hershey. "Anything from our trio out in the plains?"

Hershey shook her head over her red handkerchief. "Nothing."

"Well, I might have some good news hopefully come morning. Shadow said something about a dot marking something in the Badlands. That last message that was sent this morning went to that direction. Could be something, could be nothing."

"Well, there hasn't been anymore since, and Uncle Chuck and Rotor have called it a night. It's not looking good."

"It's never good when it comes to something like this, Hershey. I just...can't put my finger on why use a new encryption and still use the other. It doesn't make since."

Hershey shrugged her shoulders in sympathy. "I don't know what to tell you."

St. John frowned in frustration and lowered his head back to his typewriter. Three sentences later, he was done. Pulling the sheet out, he grabbed his beret and pulled the chain to shut the light off, and made his way to Hershey at the door, waiting for him. He looked tired; felt it. The dark room kindling his mind to sleep. Taking Hershey under the arm, he lead her outside, closed the door and proceeded to lock it. Another day uselessly spent in a shack and another to come, he thought. Such is intelligence and war at times.

And there his mind went to a certain General, his brother, and Tails.

"Any word from the Prowers?"

* * *

Space had shown no mercy to his mind. For thirteen long years, Amadeus' mind misplaced the sound and the lavish melody of a piano. The music was served almost like fine wine at the dinner table, taking in the flowing pieces with sips from the silences of the conversations. At times, he struggled not to tear-up in front of Darien, his wife Heather, and their young daughter Amber, all the while holding his pride for his son. The soft strikes of the keys meant that much to him.

As night fell, the conversations died as fast as the food was consumed. Topics that would've seemed trivial from the ongoing conflict actually helped pass the estranged afternoon. Some pasts were revealed while other points stretched from gardening to alien beings on other planets. Merlin on the other hand didn't partake in any of the dinner talks, instead, he just sat idly with his mind further from reality it seemed. Amadeus could see that something had scared him...and his brother was hardly ever scared. Nonetheless, a feeling of comfort sprang from the dinner table to Amadeus, one that he was glad to feel, only wishing Rosemary was with him to enjoy it.

Coming from the hall, Amadeus entered the livingroom and found Darien sitting in a love seat, and staring at a glass in his uninjured hand. He swirled the clear liquid around as if thinking he wanted to take another drink. Amadeus already knew what it was, he could smell it quite easily. "Looking for a liver replacement with that diesel?"

Darien snorted then took an easy sip from the glass. "You _know_...I–I didn't start drinking until you came along. You just _had_ to come and–and make my life com_pli_cated...again."

"So, I have resorted to you to drinking? What is that–Overlander ale?"

Resting the glass, still clutched in his hands on the armrest, Darien let a sheepish smile come across his face. "Yes, my father's old bottle before the war. Before the exodus. And his father's before him. We only–only drink it on special occasions...and, ahh, you happened to be _it_, Prower."

Amadeus inched his way to the sofa that was in front of Darien, holding back the complaint he wanted to grill Darien with. The Overlander was visibly intoxicated. Even under the low light of the lamp beside him, Amadeus could see the nystagmus in the Overlander's sagging eyes. "Why me...I haven't opened up old wounds from the past. It's done, said, and over–"

A curt wave of his injured hand, wrapped tightly by a white bandage. "Bah...I don't give two squeezes about that. _You_ won and we left. Left me behind in the processes cause I was–too slow to get back. You wouldn't believe how much a girl can hold you back–"

"And you speak like that about your wife?" Amadeus interrupted gingerly.

Darien cocked his head in an intriguing way. "I see your point, but hear mine: I was left behind and happened to be around for the coupe thanks to it. If I hadn't gone for her and to get her out, I could've been out in space and resting comfortably and not fighting a second war that very few of us Overlander's saw no need to fight. They saw Julian's oppression as just rewards for you crushing us, Amadeus. I–I saw it as enslavement in the long run. And to hear of children and kids, like your son, fighting for their lives and freedom–and ours if you look at it–I couldn't believe that my_fellow_ Homo sapiens didn't see this, and take a blind eye about it!"

Amadeus rounded the sofa and sat down, his expression leaning towards curiosity. "So what did you do to fight Julian? You had no army–"

"I tended to your's...the ones you sent to the East Coast to fight us at sea. You should have seen Mathias' face when I told him that we almost came and annihilated his little house and sank his boat. Real close, Amadeus. But you all won, and they were saved, and it was a damn miracle that they were. You see, us few who saw Julian–whatever he called himself afterwards–we helped as much as we could with the resistence. We weren't many, but we helped. I saw to Mathias' crew and their families's health. Other's supplied him with parts to make his torpedoes and gave him any leftover fuel we had. In kind, Drake protected our shores every now-and-then, while sinking bulk shipments that Julian Kintobor plundered from the places he took over." Darien took another sip from his short, elegantly etched glass before asking, "You were robotsized right?"

Amadeus' head sunk to the brass buttons of his uniform. "Yes, I was. The day my son was born...I would have loved to have ran my saber into Julian's fat-gut for that."

Laughter filtered in from the hallway, beckoning Amadeus to lift his head and glance over the sofa. Amber had a sweet, childish laugh about her that calmed him from his past nightmares. After a moment he heard his son's voice joining in. And there, he smiled.

The little girl was captivated as she sat and watched her two toy spaceships whirling around the room without her hands acting out the battle. Tails didn't understand wether he was laughing at the two toys chasing each other through the cluttered room, or at Amber. He was sure she had never seen magic used like this before, or even at all for that matter. Her widen eyes of joy and wonder made it evident, having shed the warrior mask as he first saw her wear and bringing her back to the plane of a little girl.

Merlin himself couldn't be more happy at Amber's expression, sometimes joining in the fray of laughter as he maneuvered his hands as if they were the controls of the two ships; one wide and streamlined, taking the appearance of a duck's bill, however extending two long prongs on each swept-back wing that made for weapons, and the other ship a crudely modeled Hoverbot. The hooded fox's eyes twinkled as he manipulated the dog fight, letting the Hoverbot become the prey while Amber's ship looked as if it was getting the slip from it. Bringing the chase higher up, Merlin mangled the Hoverbot through the blades of the ceiling fan that was turning at a steady speed, only letting the streamlined ship take a higher avenue before apexing and diving down after its quarry. To Amber's amazement her ship actually fired at the Hoverbot that was looking to escape between her and Tails. Streams of purple light pulsated from the ship's cannons and caught the Hoverbot. And there, Merlin worked another spellbinding trick as he simulated the lasers eating away at the Hoverbot's hull, giving Amber a fiery finale' before crashing the Hoverbot into the floor.

"Cool!" she laughingly praised.

Merlin couldn't help himself not to laugh, playing a victory roll with the surviving toy before landing it on top of a bookcase just to his right. "Hail the Mighty Amber, slayer of all Robotnick's robots!"

Amber cheered while simultaneously turning and facing Tails with a smile. "So what can _you_do?" she asked him tauntingly.

"Well," he began hesitantly, "I can fly."

"Really!?"

"Yea," Tails replied with a wide face, "I whirl my tails around like a helicopter and I can go pretty far up. Usually, my buddy Sonic needs me to fly him someplace if he can't climb or whatever."

Amber rolled her eyes and Tails could see what was coming. "Is that why they call you _Tails_?"

"Duh!" he scoffed, shooting his uncle a glance that received a smile in return. "I'm also a pretty good pilot too...an't that right uncle?"

Amber never gave Merlin a chance to reply. "I don't know about that. You look kinda young to fly machines. Besides, there's always someone out there better than you are."

"Who says!?" festered Tails.

"My daddy...that's what he always tells me."

Merlin clasped his hands inside his sleeves. "Your father's wise. No matter how prepared you are, you may find an adversary that is stronger, faster, and more cunning than you."

"Uh huh, and you know what?...sometimes that person may also be your friend..."

"You think those two will be fine together?" Darien asked, his hand shaking from the effects of the ale as he poured more into his glass from a elegant looking bottle, its color surprisingly still flush. "I mean, they're not going to get into fight or anything?"

"Miles behaves himself pretty well. I think they'll gain insight from one another, really. After all, Amber kept referring to us as _Furies_–"

"She did?" Darien said sternly just before he took another sip. "I tried to...ah–stop her from saying that...but my mouth and my wife's sometimes get in the way of raising her. Y'all have made some pretty dumb decisions as of late. Especially that truce with Eggman."

"From my understanding that was with Sonic, not the Kingdom–"

"And the King should have seen it comin--"

Darien suddenly stopped himself cold. Amadeus watched carefully as the Overlander perched his lips shut and took held a distant stare at the far wall, as if searching it for his next line of thought. From there, anguish mixed with pity slowly traced upon his rounded face.

"Time for bed, Amber," annouced Heather from behind Merlin, "you've been staying up way to late for the past couple of nights." She then looked down at Tails on the floor. "You don't mind sleeping on the top bunk, do you?"

"Not at all, ma'am. It beats the ground and the cockpit of a plane," he reminisced.

"Then up you go you two," she smiled, stepping past Merlin as Tails and Amber got up and crawled into their respective beds by the back wall. Heather tightened Amber's blankets snugly and searched for a stuffed teddy bear that the little girl had named Pal. Lastly came the gentle kiss on the forehead and a playful tickle of love before Heather rose up and walked to the doorway where Merlin waited with a warm smile across his face.

"Night, Miles," he said.

"Night, uncle."

Heather flipped the switch and the room went crisply black before a blue nightlight began the journey's glow throughout the night. "Don't talk too much...we have a big day tomorrow." Turning her gentle smile to Merlin, she said, "we have a spare room down the hall for you and Amadeus."

"Thank you. I am most anxious to sleep after today," replied the fox cordially, only shifting his eyes away from Heather for a moment to see his brother's head nodding in understanding from the apparent soft spoken words of the Overlander.

"...yesterday, my wife says to me that we should leave here...leave all of this and go back to our old home."

Amadeus nodded and leaned forward, supporting his arms across his legs. "I don't see why not. What were you thinking when you brought them here, and this close to Eggman?"

"Why I'm drinking tonight of nights, Prower," Darien retorted snidely. "If you were in my boots, you'd do the same."

Amadeus jolted his head back as if he were slapped in the face. It was the first time that night that Darien had become defensive. "On the contrary–"

The Overlander carefully balanced his glass as he pointed squarely at Amadeus uniform from across the void. "No...you would, trust me. With what I have charged myself with and–and with what I have to show you, I–I bet you your good eye you'd drink."

Shifting himself back in the sofa, Amadeus was on the verge of protesting once more when Darien abruptly stood up from the love seat, glass still in hand. "There was a king once. None of our history that I know of, but there was a king once, Amadeus. And a defeated one at that," he pointed once more as he paced back and forth in front Amadeus. The spirit was taking hold of his motor-skills, his stance wobbly with every stride, and his speech sloppy and slurred. "This king, a human if I remember, was...ah–sentenced to be executed by the conquering clan, or monarch, however you want to call them. Anyhow, they posed him in front of his generals, soldiers, and of course, his conquered people. One of those...message deals I'm sure you're aware of." Amadeus nodded and said nothing. "Well, just before the conquering king rammed the other king's sword through him, a mere soldier came running up through the crowd, screaming at the top of his lungs to stop the execution. I think he was even crying. Well...the guards stop him and almost slain him, but he stops them. You know how?"

"No," Amadeus confessed.

"He cries out to his king that he has forsaken him...that he was the reason for defeat and that he should fall upon the sword before his sire does."

The one eyed fox held an inquisitive look. "Why? Why doesn't he rescue his king?"

Darien took another pull and waved his glass afterwards as if it were a conductor's wand to an orchestra. "Because he says, 'I have forsaken you for I held my tongue. I knew of their armies plans and I knew of how they were to strike, but I held my tongue and my duty to fight for fear of my life.' That...that was why he wanted to fall upon the sword, and in front of his king and subjects. He did to nothing to save his own people and his king." Darien took an uneasy step forward and posed in front of Amadeus, still using his glass as an assist to his story. "And you know what the king did to him, Amadeus?"

Amadeus shook his head in a puzzled way. "No, Darien," he replied softly.

"The king pardoned him, Amadeus. He pardoned the soldier that was responsible for his fall and death...leaving him to carry the burden of his people's suffering through the rest of his days."

He drank the glass dry this time, grimacing at what Amadeus could see was more at his own thoughts that plagued him than the rough drink. "I have forsaken, Amadeus. I, like that young soldier, have forsaken not a king, but of many lives...and yet I was pardoned by one just by his mere conscious."

A twitch of his right ear brought a sympathetic expression to Amadeus' face. "And who was the king, I might ask?"

Darien gazed inside his glass, peering at the last droplets of the amber liquid as if they were urging him to speak his haunted memories. Setting it down by the bottle on the night stand, he sighed. "A friend...the same friend who told me the story."

"Amber?" Tails quietly whispered, his hands clasped behind his head as he watched the shadows from the fan blades trace the ceiling. "You still awake?"

"Yes," she said.

"You said something about a monster...that he was real?"

An uneasy silence followed before Amber spoke, her voice calm, but somehow sounded scarred to a degree that nipped at Tails' mind. "He came during the worst storm the world had ever seen. They call it something–The Day of...I don't know..."

"The Day of Fury?" Tails replied, his voice raised out of surprise. He remembered that period very well. Not only did he and Sonic take a good hit of lightning while flying _Winged Victory_, but they also ended up helping Knuckles save a lost tribe of Echidnas just shortly after.

"Yea, that's it. He came that night. You know what monsters wear, Tails?"

He shook his head even though she wouldn't see it. "No. What do they wear?"

Another short period of silence. "This one wears a long black coat, and a huge hat. He has these hair strands that are thick...I don't even think that they are hair anyways. Well, not like mine." The description formed in Tails' mind as Amber continued, her calm voice slithering a troublesome fear across his skin as the dark figure slowly came to light. "He has this gun, Tails. It takes life without making a sound. I saw him about to use it on my daddy, but I stopped him just before he could shoot it."

"How?" Tails whispered eerily.

"I don't know. I just ask him what he was doing to my daddy...and he stopped and looked at me. He looked scarred...I never knew monsters could look scarred, Tails. And you know what else?"

"What," Tails whispered again, feeling his heart sink as he waited for the next haunting reply.

"His face bleeds."

Tails felt something seep into the pit of his stomach; sadness but yet, mixed with a troublesome fear he couldn't put his finger on. "It does!?" he swallowed, finding the aghast sensation still remaining.

"Uh-huh, and if he comes back, I sure will kill him before he tries to kill my dad."

Tails' eyes remained fixed to the ceiling, however, his vision gazing upon the scarred, lonely face of someone he now realized he knew. "Amber?" he whispered somberly.

"Yes, Tails."

He rolled over on his side and strained his sight at the open doorway. "Please don't kill him...he's my friend."

"...How is he, my–my old friend that is? Is he still wearing black?" Darien said, almost mournfully.

Amadeus straightened himself in the sofa and undid the brass buttons to his heavy tunic. "The time I saw him yesterday he wasn't wearing anything black. He has his gloves and a new pair of shoes from what I saw. His father, I can only hope is training him...really hope those two are bonding more than anything."

"So he _is_ an Echidna Guardian?" Darien asked a bit dazed.

"Yes,"Amadeus replied, his brows raising. "His white crest should have been evident?"

Darien plummeted back in the love seat, his expression one of shock, figuring out a riddle it seemed. "Why, Emi-La?" he muttered, reaching blindly for the bottle once again, holding his trancing stare at the foot of the sofa.

"What?" came Amadeus, almost jumping out of his seat and fur, "you knew her?"

His soft gaze lifted up to the fox. "Those two were inseparable, Prower. I just don't understand why she didn't tell me about him then, instead of just what she thought about the company we unfortunately took."

"What do you mean?"

Darien sat the bottle back down and clasped his empty glass with both hands, stealing a glance at the floor before fixing his glazed eyes on Amadeus. "Emi-La told me that something was wrong, that things were being done to _clean_, she said. But she was unsure, and for the life of me, I don't understand why she told me to begin with. Aleutian trusted me, and I sometimes I wonder if that was why she trusted me more."

"Huh...why do you say that?"

Darien's stare turned eerily sad, as if Amadeus should have known the answer. "Didn't he tell you? Did Mathias tell you?"

A puzzled look stretched across the fox's shaking face. "Unfortunately I had to cast my old friend off to sea...never had a chance to speak with him. And Aleutian has laid silent with us for the most part. When he spoke of his past, tears usually followed."

Leaning forward, Darien pinched his lips and tried to swallow. "I...I had pronounced Emi-La pregnant."

"She was what!?" Amadeus snapped in a whisper.

"Yea, and she told me not to tell Aleutian about it." Darien softly replied, his gaze going back to the floor and saying nothing more.

Questions raced through Amadeus' mind faster than he could fathom them. Some answers were far removed while others wear so perplex he never bothered to trouble the Overlander with them. He saw Darien's face grow sad, searching for sympathy at what he'd done...at what he didn't do. _"Pardoned by a king,"_ he muttered in his psyche. It was the only feasible thing Amadeus could think, only wondering why Darien had to be pardoned before falling on his sword. By all means, he understood the reason for the pardoning, but he didn't understand why it almost came to that...Darien had his own life and family to worry about. From what Amadeus gathered, he cherished them more than suicide...

It came to him just as the last minor chord of a nocturne piano piece was played, the turn table falling silent, saved for the hisses and pops of the record. The thought frightened Amadeus but also saddened him all the same.

"You know, Darien," he said, his voice tranquil but sincere, "I think I might join you in finishing that bottle."

* * *

The most pleasure I had in this chapter was writing the conversation with Amadeus and Darien. The king bit came a little out of the blue but it fit perfectly with this. I hoped you enjoyed and keep coming back for more. 


	19. Liberators from Knothole

* * *

Greetings my wonderful audience. Let me get started with saying I am back to full swing even with my new job of driving on the road. Hopefully the sights and sounds I will see on this new endeavor will improve my writing and I hope to share what I have seen to you in my sceneries in my stories. Second: I am ahead of the ball game with two more chapters already written and ready for the chopping block after I finish the current one I am one. All you dark Legionnaires rejoice after this.

And now to the meet and guts. Sonic, Knuckles and--hehe--'Twan are taking the spot light on this. First time really putting suspense on the for front with a little comedy relief from a new character, which should amuse some of you, I hope. My normal editor is absent due to me being absent so the spelling, grammar and possibly some sentences structures aren't going to be gold. But on my end of writing them and improving...well, I see that I am improving.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything of the original Sonic cast nor the Comic cast.

EnjoY, and please review.**  
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**Alert:** Edited version.**  
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* * *

**Liberators from Knothole**

By: Mauser

* * *

His thoughts trailed once more. One couldn't blame him, laying motionless in the wheat pasture, the straws itching at his back, all the while he waited for last light, the forced worker party, and for Sonic to come back. Thoughts helped slave off the boredom and sleep for Knuckles. Granted that most of his life was supposed to be spent in a chamber, guarding an emerald, but he wouldn't be doing it on constant guard like he was at the moment. Even the mind drained energy and strength from the body while in a constant state of full alertness.

But he kept thinking, coming back to the same thoughts that pushed him further into disbelief every time he entertained the same conclusion._"I have a brother..."_ Warmth filled his mind when Aleutian's smile lathered his imagination. It was the perfect escape. The perfect diversion from the afternoon's trials. Aleutian's scarred, however, warming smile had become Knuckles' savior from the dead and the oppressed he had seen–and horridly touched–although he knew Aleutian was desperately looking for the same. Had he truly accepted that Aleutian was his brother? He felt so estranged to him at first, but over time and the course of the sea and yesterday, he felt closer to him...but still so far away. In some lights he still saw Aleutian walking away from him on the day he first met him, his back cloaked in the long black coat he wore, his head cowered to the sanctuary of the wooden floor. That silent whimper of despair. Was it his way of saying that he wanted to talk? Was it his way of saying...he was sorry?

"_I should've talked to him more from the get-go,"_ Knuckles coldly admitted to himself. A spark triggered another thought, one about himself. _"I wonder if he can talk me out of the nightmares that I know are coming? Gosh...those faces, I can't forget those faces!"_ He sighed at the coming night, the sky turning blue except with a sickly amber color from the light pollution coming down the planed path. _"He is my brother...I've felt it from the beginning, but I think I have accepted it now. I know that is what he needs."_

"Where iz he?" fretted Antoine, cautiously gaining his balance on his feet and peering west, over the still tops of the wheat.

Knuckles sat up, gauging that last night was upon them, and agreeing to the underlying message that Sonic was late to come back. "If they found him, we would've heard the alarms by now. Just be patient, Antoine."

"How can you say zuch things. We're dead if he getz caught!"

Knuckles tucked his right leg under his left and carefully began to stand on his feet, gently raising up to peer over the tops of the wheat as well. "Sonic has this gift, Antoine, to do the most stupidest things and still come out on top."

"Oui, and we getz the punizhment!" scoffed the coyote. He tried to smile when Knuckles rolled his attuned eyes at the comment. Well, tried; only failing when he crossed his arms over his bare, furred chest. _"Zome plan!_ he mockingly muttered in the still hot, dead air. Stealing a cold glance at his blue, ruined uniformed jacket, he remarked mentally at Knuckles' "expertly" slashed rips in the back and front of his jacket from the echidna's spiked knuckles. And seemingly adding insult to injury at Antoine's expense, Sonic had dragged the once clean and pressed uniform through the dust and tall wheat grass, turning the blue dyed cloth into a dusty tan color, and fraying the sleeves and liner. To Sonic's amusement, it was all Knuckle's idea to dirty up Antoine's jacket. Prisoner's are never clean, prim and proper.

Pushing his temper aside, he took note of Knuckles' long stare. "What do you see?" he inquired, pivoting his head slightly to the south and further back towards the camp. He could see the beaming white, searchlights of the camp's entrance in the distance, far enough away that eased the coyote's mind of not being seen.

Knuckles took his time in his observations. He could see structures in the distance, large ones at that, but he couldn't affirm his conclusions as to what they were. The brown haze from Eggman's by-product of his refineries lingered heavily across the void, consuming the facility's lights and refinement burn-offs--which Knuckles could barley make out just by the tall stacks that glowed from the spurting flames–like a sponge. He counted six of the plumes, although he was sure there was more that he couldn't see. And the smell! Bitter, sour, compounded with what he could describe as stale kerosene fuel, suffocating what fresh air he could breath in through his nostrils. _"But it beats the smell of the dead,"_ he sighed within himself. His crimson fur still had the icky sensation of laying on those dead, bloated bodies. His spine wasn't saved either, chilling and cringing with every fly and mosquito that passed across his ears, helping him relive his terrifying experience just by mere sound.

A long breath rested the dead finally, throwing his mind to his and Antoine's surroundings so they wouldn't become the same. No threats were aroused from his senses, just one timid coyote and a missing blue hedgehog just out for a look-see. _"Where is he?"_ he growled to himself, no sense in letting Antoine become more spooked than he already was. The sun was fading fast in his impatient mind, and not for the better. Within the next half hour, he calculated, night would engross the land, and the surrounding lights were only going to hamper their situation. Knuckles wanted to leave the safety of the field, search for Sonic and drag him back by his pointed ears, and be ready for the passing labor party. If they would ever come at all. His muzzle wrinkled wit his tempered attitude about the whole situation, showing it to the four winds as his eyes laced the tops of the wheats, scanning once more for--

His, along with Antoine's head snapped to the south, the crushing of grain triggering their knee-jerk reaction perhaps faster than they would possibly have done in the safety of Knothole. Echidna and coyote stole quick glances at each other, reading the shared expression that they both had in fact heard something. Antoine was quickest to react from that silent conclusion, throwing himself low to the ground, practically diving for his coat that hid his saber under it, and using caution with speed to unsheathe it without letting the metal _ring_ in the calm air. Letting the sheath fall where it may, he held the hilt sideways with his right hand, letting the curving blade lay flat while balancing the palm of his left at the base of the saber, cocking his arms back and preparing for a driving trust at what or who was coming. Knuckles took instant note of Antoine's stance and worked his way diligently to the coyote's left side, giving him a good berth at the edge of the small clearing they had flattened out in the course of their waiting. Their fixed eyes never left the jumbled wheat, Knuckles bringing his right arm back, fist clutched and knuckles ready to go to work, hoovering his left fist just below his chest for a quick defense if need be.

The rustling crept closer, footsteps becoming pronounced with each passing second and increasing heartbeat. The fighting charge was no stranger for Knuckles, letting his cool consume the anxiety of the impending ambush. Antoine, however, kept adjusting his stance, showing he was unsure of his technique although Knux knew it was sound. Whoever, or whatever, was coming was possibly going to feel Antoine's resolve before Knuckles' had the chance to deliver his. Two heartbeats progressed and so did the approaching threat. The tops of the grain wavered with each passing footfall. Blinking his eyes to reapply the lost moisture from holding them open, Knuckles began to make out a dark blob slowly become silhouetted through the thin gaps of the straw, trumping him to strafe to the left and lowing himself further over his knees. His heart was pounding now...not with fear, but the ecstasy of the coming combat. He loved it, breathed it, cherished it to a point that he wondered if he could ever live without it being a part of his life. He let his face bleed a smile over his charged face, brightening as the figure's textures started to become a little more pronounced.

Antoine revved back his saber, holding it and his breath back...waiting on impulse. The rustling and the ghostly figure was three paces away; enough to give one last cock to his–

"Yo, guys–you awake?" came the pompous whisper of an almost one _dead_ hedgehog.

"Sonic–you idiot!" Knuckles snapped with a hoarse, deranged whisper, his face showing the same. His stance grudgingly relaxed, however his fist were still posed to strike. "I should just throttle you now just for fun, slow poke!"

Sonic peered out through the straw, sporting his trademark smile. It brightened when his emerald eyes fell on Antoine as he brought down his sword, but mustering his loathing face in rallying arms instead. "Juzt do 'et, Knuckles, zo we can be done witz zhez torture!"

Knuckles moved into the source of both his and 'Twan's currently anxiety. Sonic's face coward as he brought his arms up as a "don't-hurt-me stance", holding a slender camera and a pair of silver, ruffled objects out as hostages. Knuckles didn't care, giving the hedgehog what he considered to be a love tap on his right shoulder, but was sure Sonic would hopefully feel it for the rest of the night. "Where the heck have you been, Blue?" he hammered out over his disciplined voice, "and why didn't you say the codeword we agreed on?"

Sonic dropped the objects in his hands and produced a scolded look for once. "I forget it, okay–"

"How can you forget, _juice_!?" Knuckles festered, letting his mitts ask more of the question than his mouth.

"Hey, it happens."

"Oiu, and zo doez my blade cutting you open, hedgehog!" quipped Antoine, finding his sheathe and putting his saber at rest.

Knuckles studied the objects that Sonic had brought. "What are those?"

"Our ticket in, I hope? What size you wear, Rad?"

"Does it matter?"

Sonic released a "duh" expression on his face. "They're vulcan suits. Y'know, resists high temperatures–"

"Where did you get zhese?" Antoine whispered in panic, examining one after dropping his sword and mouth.

Sonic shrugged. "I borrowed them."

"They didn't see you, did they?" Knuckles asked almost with a growl.

"Believe me, you would've heard the priority one alarm if they did," Sonic quipped, rolling his eyes at the answer. After all, he was the most hunted _rodent_ on the planet.

Knuckles and Antoine collectively calmed themselves, still peering over their shoulders just out of nervous habit. Taking in a relaxing sigh Knuckles brought his attention to the camera that Sonic still held in his hands, the long lens being covered by its respective cap. "Any good pictures while you were out spelunking?"

Sonic's face grew serious, driving Knuckles to the same plane. "Yeah...this is way more than an oil field. Egg-butt has himself a refueling port for his Eggfleet." Knuckles eyes became glued to Sonic's. "While I was taking keep-sake pictures, three ships came in and docked. There was another one coming in, and Eggman has his bots working on a fifth docking port. These things are huge, man."

Knuckles nodded and let his eyes wander in thought briefly before choosing his next question. "What about our ticket in?"

Sonic looked back to the south and over towards the lights. "Come with me...and this isn't going to be a cake walk."

* * *

"MOVE, FUR-BALLS!"

The huddled mass took to the speed of a starting train. Christian was lost somewhere in the middle of it, going along with the flow of the enslaved, eyes trained to ground as if he was searching to reclaim his convictions. All was lost to him in his current state of numbness. Being overworked to the point of exhaustion was actually a getaway from the fear of what had became of his Kripta. Never once in their five years of marriage had they ever been separated, and the depression that consumed him from her lacking presence drove away his will to resist the bots. He instead went along with their demands with only the fear of the promise of death keeping him close to reality.

Grime, oil, and the still air lathered his fur. Every step gradually brought him and the rest of the forced laborers towards the camp and away from the scorching refineries that dotted around the docks, two to each dock. The vulcan suits helped to fend off the high temperatures of the five story tall structures, a mass of bulging canister looking scrapers with pipes extending out from the tops that bellowed the brown smoke of the burnt off crude. But with the day hopefully coming to an end, Christian had his suit off, carrying it under his right arm as his left dangled.

A gentle touch scared him back to his surroundings. Relinquishing his gaze from the ground, he brought his head over to his right shoulder where his sagging, itchy eyes met the face of a beagle. He had a carefree smile about him, his droopy ears adding to the warmness that separated the dire situation of everyone's exhaustive state. "You alright?" he asked softly with his ever present deep Slovic accent, never looking over his shoulder to see if a bot was prying into their business.

Christian looked to the front, fixing a tired stare at the back of a racoon's vulcan suit. "I'll let you know in the morning." Sighing, he asked, "I heard we lost three more today?"

"_Da_," the beagle affirmed under a sigh. "These machines think we same as them. I'd give good monee for show to see them work under conditions they put us unda."

"They are, Mikhail," Christian managed to scoff, "and they're beating us hands down."

"Hm, maybe so...but." Mikhail peered over behind him and saw the nearest bot to the rear of the marching group was well away. He leaned down as he kept pace with Christian's ear. "The bots, you see, they getting lax in program."

The echidna darted his eyes all around him, looking unconvinced. "What makes you say that? Remember yesterday?"

"_Da_! And I also remember we had six machines marching us instead of four from morning. Diamond pattern I notice. One front, one rear, two sides. Under forced for the thirty of us, no?"

Christian thought he knew what the blotchy colored beagle was hinting at. "And the other twenty of us back at camp, Mikhail?"

"Don't worry my long haired friend. I'm not planning anything...yet."

An anxiety filled sigh. "They're not hair, _Mikey_. They're flesh and blood dreads."

Mikhail disciplined a quipped chuckle. "Who you tricking, echidna. You pull them back like girl's hair. I just worry about mange...not looking pretty for bots."

"Will you two shut-up," hissed male the racoon in front of them. "We'll be dead by the time we get back to camp."

Christian sulked his head as he scanned his surroundings once more. "You've seen those ships they brought in?"

The beagle snorted. "I'm not blind, Christian."

"That's not what I meant," came the looking reply.

"What are you going to do about them...steal one? Make fireworks? Heh, you need to be free first, no? Work on that, then think of big picture. Maybe you should think of your Kripta more? At least you think straight with her."

Christian shook his head in a depressive way. He was too drained to think of anything else but to eat and sleep. Tomorrow he'll continue to mourn his wife.

* * *

Hunching over his hands and knees, Knuckles slid back into the concealment of the wheat field. "They're coming," he said, shifting through the straw before stopping beside Sonic and Antoine. "So what did you have in mind, Blue?"

The answer wasn't comforting. "I'm still working on it."

"_What_!?"

Sonic raised his hands in defense, grimacing mostly at himself. The vulcan suit was part of his idea. Perhaps the best so far, but getting into the slow, dragging formation of prisoners was taking a good portion of his brain to figure out. Easing himself to the same spot Knuckles had just crept away from, he shifted a few of the standing straws from his eyes and peered at the jumbled group, guessing their distance was maybe a hundred yards, maybe shorter. Being the fastest thing on the planet tend to make distances shorter than what they were. Either way, it wasn't going to be long before they arrived and Sonic was running out of options.

Or so he thought.

Like a predator seeking prey Sonic picked out a sick quarry that he hoped would get sicker.

"Red, get that suit on! 'Twan, look your captured best...and leave your sword."

"_Sacre bleu_!"

"There's no choice, 'Twan. They're not armed so neither are we," Knuckles said, looking at his own "weapons". His solution was simple; tuck his mittens under the sleeves, letting the bulky jacket conceal them with ease. That was unless Sonic grabbed the wrong size. After he struggled into it, his worried thoughts perished for the suit was too big instead of the previous.

Sonic on the other hand wasn't having as much luck as the echidna. In retrospect the suit fitted perfectly, however the problem was...the suit fitted perfectly. It left hardly any room to shrink himself deep inside of it. _"Great!"_

Rolling flat on his stomach, he was joined by Knuckles to his left and Antoine on his right, the three watching intently at the approaching mass. _"Only four bots...what a joke!"_

* * *

It was only a matter of time, distance, and dwindling energy before the march claimed its first victim. Mikhail had observed the young female mouse for the past mile stumbling over her heavy feet, trying to keep up with herself and not the group. At his high vantage point he felt like an angel watching the heads of the befallen, becoming the protector against an unseen evil that was worse than the bots. Quickening his pace he navigated through the sea of Mobians while keeping his sharp eyes on the grey, balloon ears of the mouse. Tracking her down at the edge of the mass he caught her under the arms just as her legs began to give out.

"I have you," he announced, feeling her weight fully give out into his arms when he said it.

Dreary, worn and ragged, with her clothes looking the same way, her chocolate eyes looked into Mikhail's in a reverent way which seized his muscles to a stop and let her catch her breath. "I...I'm sorry."

A comforting smile released from his jowls. "There is nothing to be sorry about. We almost there...just bit further."

"Just leave me," she tiredly prayed.

"Out of the question. Before you know it, we'll be back at huts and dinning on sunflower bread and soup. Your strength be back."

A short koala broke from the passing marchers, giving assistance to the young girl, however showing worry and dismissal. "She needs to keep going. Come on, you can do it honey. You have more fight than us at your age."

Saddened disappointment seeped into Mikhail's stomach upon seeing the girl's head drop down to her chest. She was giving into hopelessness. He didn't blame her one bit and wished he do could the same, but others depended on the sight of strength from where ever they could witness it. When one gives in to defeat, Mikhail could count on five more doing the same, finding what they're eyes perceived as an excuse to end their suffering.

"You need to be strong for us, young one," urged the koala.

Mikhail lifted her some off the ground, his efforts spawning a tired whimper from the girl. "He's right. You stay at camp tomorrow. We make sure–"

"AND HALT!"

Mikhail's back bristled from the Eggbot's grueling command; those two words being the most feared throughout the camp. The tired mass slowed to a halt, sounds of their shuffling footsteps becoming faint in the silence of the plane, replaced by the groans of the servos from the bot marching up from behind. Mikhail felt the tension in his throat increase, swallowing it to gain his courage and composure, however finding the tightness never leaving. He knew it wouldn't but one could only hope.

He, and quite possibly the koala, bristled a second time from the voice box of the machine. "What is the matter? Why have you slowed?"

Taking a steady breath, and a prayer under it, he looked over his shoulder as he kept the girl close to him. "She is catching breath. Not long before she better."

"I compute that she is useless. She has out lived her usefulness," retorted the bot dryly.

Mikhail felt the girl come alive in his arms from the bots observations. He adjusted his holding stance and did his best not to bare his teeth when he brought forth his thoughts. "You compute all you want. She is fine. You know nothing of our suffering you put us unda."

"If she doesn't stand, we'll terminate her–"

"You will do nothing of the sort, machine!"

* * *

Sonic could feel the fright as with everyone else in the clustered group. He wanted to cheer for what the beagle was dishing out to Eggman's mindless machines, but jeering was becoming ever present in his mind._"Just throw her over your shoulder man. C'mon, don't get everybody killed." _Looking down the line, a smile beckoned him when the rear bot broke ranks and hastily marched to the problem.

Leaning his head to the side he brought his voice lower than a whisper. "Knux, you see it?"

How could he not? The huddled group to the rear step outwards as their curiosity threw caution to the wind–if there was any–creating a small shield of concealment. Unfortunately, he and Antoine had to cross the twenty foot void to reach it. The dark was working in their favor, however, the low light of the quarter moon wasn't, and the shiny vuclan suits were nothing more than a beacon in the sea of black.

Pressing up on his forearms he inched his way off his stomach, and positioned his feet under him. Glancing past Sonic, Antoine was struggling to do the same. "What are you going to do, Blue?" he asked cautiously.

"I got y'all. If those bozos do anything stupid, I'll shred 'em to the bot-afterlife, and we just rescue these instead of the camp. I'll go when you two are safe."

Knuckles nodded. "Alright. 'Twan? You ready?"

"Oui, monsieur."

The echidna lifted himself further up, balancing most of his weight on his feet. Like a runner waiting for the opening shot, holding his breath all the while, he attentively watched the trailing bot, holding himself steady for his time to bolt. There, the bot closed the distance that Knuckles knew was just enough to make the run. In a flash he was gone. Antoine's delay was expected, however his slowness was irritating to Sonic.

Knuckles crossed the void with his throttling legs, feet rolling to reduce the sound of the dirt rolling under his shoes, his senses on the prowl for threats and fidgeting his eyes behind him, keeping tabs on Antoine. A series of paces under his thrusting arms brought him closer, eyes now becoming fixed on a meandering male fox, thinly built, however becoming the Guardian's finishing line. Knuckles tried to breathe but disciplined himself to hold it more.

His heart stopped when the last bot started to turn towards the field. Snapping his head back which flung his dreads around in the process, Antoine was six paces behind him and dropping back more. If he survived along with the coyote, he promised himself he'd have Julie-Su take him on runs to speed his lazy tail up. This was getting ridicules.

Eyes forward, then back at the bot. It stopped it's turn! _"Home free!"_

The fox was startled when Knuckles charged passed him, becoming more so when Antoine raced passed him soon after, hard breathing and giddy. The two ignored him as they slowed, stopping when they lost sight of the bots behind the sea of Mobians. But Knuckles didn't expel his breath yet.

Sonic waited for what seemed like an eternity. His green eyes never left the two bots, both still "chatting" with the beagle, and the rest of the gathering party. To his relief it turned further to the crowd, and there, Sonic pumped his legs under his torso. Fighting the urge to go all out, he hammered away at the ground, his shoes never once losing traction or making a sound, clearing the distance in under a second and a half. It sure did feel longer, though. A light skid, a fast turn, and a sweeping arm behind Antoine brought him inside the mass of the desperate. A collective, relieved sigh came over them, pushing past the other mobians as they buried themselves deep within the ranks.

Easing past a turtle, Knuckles navigated the maze of stiffened bodies, looking for a safe crowd he could call sanctuary to hide amongst. To his surprised, baffled, but yet, excited mind...he found it sporting dreads.

* * *

It didn't take long for Mikhail to notice the new arrival. It didn't take him quite as long to notice the charging laser the machine had for a right arm whine to life. The policy, one which he and everyone else feared, was if a furry couldn't go on, they were "terminated" at the will of the bots. He hoped the girl remembered this. He'd seen too much life uselessly wasted over the past two days.

"Come," he whispered into her large ear, "the land you die on isn't worth your wants. You're not running to the camp...just light walk. That's all."

The fear of death shook her back from the path of despair. Her shoeless feet found the strength to stand, and Mikhail and the koala helped her up. The tension died shortly after a few steps. To the beagles great relief, the bots resumed their respective duties that most hoped would stay that way.

"You be alright?" he asked, eyeing his question at the koala as well. She only nodded.

"I'll take her the rest of the way, Mikey," offered the koala. "You've attracted too much attention to yourself as of now."

"_Da_."

* * *

Knuckles stood uneasy behind the brown echidna, waiting for the march to continue before he struck up a conversation. He wanted to smile, however he had to carry the face defeat like everyone else beside him, when the letters of the Echidna Security Team caught his purple eyes, wondering if the poor sap still knew his training.

"MARCH, FUR-BALLS!"

The slow grind of the forward motion brought the shuffling sound he was longing for. Pinching his lips and darting his eyes around, Knuckles finally found the courage to speak.

"Hello, fellow Echidna," he whispered under a brightened tone.

The brown echidna's head lifted from the ground and peered over his left shoulder, eyes becoming wide with surprise that amused Knuckles' ego to some degree. "Huh?" he stammered at first. "Where did you come from?"

"Thin air."

"Well, I hope you can disappear just as fast, 'cause I'm supposed to be the only echidna around here!"

Knuckles face frowned at the drop of a hat. "Well, that's comforting."

Christian kept moving forward, leaning his head back for his voice to reach the new echidna. "Who are you?" Knuckles opened the vulcan jacket and exposed his white crest. "Guardian!?" Christian about shrilled in panic. "What...what's going on?"

"Good news," answered Sonic to his left, spooking him even more. "We're breaking you all outta here."

"Done tried; done failed," came the fast reply.

A narrowed brow in annoyance. "We're the party crashers, friend," Knuckles assured. "Call it a career."

Christian fixed his eyes forward, his mind dwelling on his new guests. "I hope so."

Sonic peered off to the right side. He held his temptation to snort when he saw the beagle approach.

He was about to be amused for once.

Mikhail stopped dead with his face dropping in shock from seeing Knuckles. "Ah...they rabbits! They multiply!"

"Mikhail...quiet," Christian scolded under his breath. "We've got a problem here."

"_Da_! There two of you, Christian. That is big, big problem!"

"Wrong!" Sonic returned, "I'm the big problem. They see me, we're toast."

The beagle shot his head around the four points and continued walking. Satisfied the bots were unaware, he brought his observations to the hysterical group. "If you don't want to be found, stay close here in center. The machines have stopped caring of our numbers. Why you important to them?

Sonic let a grin come across his face at the beagle. A wide eyed nod sufficed for an answer. "Where's 'Twan?" he asked next

"Here," came the coyote from behind the four, his head turned backwards most of the march thus far, and sizing up the rear bot. "So, now what do we do?"

"We waltz in," Sonic said eerily calm. "Can you all hide us for the night...we don't plan to stay long."

"Yeah, sure," Christian answered.

"Put them in hut four, Christian. I'm sure the leopard will be most anxious to meet them."

Three hard nods confirmed the consensus. Looking forward once more, Christian felt his soul spark back to life as a sweeping light from one of the guard towers passed over them. Taking a breath, he relaxed his voice to a more fitting volume. "How did you all find out about us? Was beginning to wonder if all was lost."

Knuckles answered this round. "We intercepted a ciphered message going here."

"Yea, this place has been really picking up lately," Christian said. "Have you seen those ships?"

"You bet," Sonic interjected, "even got a new photo album of them. We'll be back for those, but we are definitely getting you all out first."

"Sooner the better. Christian...we need to tell Lemeans about changes with the bots and schedule."

"What's that about?" Sonic asked.

Christian waved his hand as if it were nothing. "They're loosening up on us. We're actually not due back till tomorrow afternoon. My two cents say they don't want us by the ships."

Knuckles nodded. "I can see that, but loosening up–hardly."

"It has been worse."

"We know," Antoine hissed.

Christian eased his pace some after seeing the entrance gate become active. Looking to Knuckles, he offered his talents of escape-and-evasion to him. "Stay close to my back. They bottleneck us into the entrance but afterwards they let us go our own way. If you have to, grab a hold of my tail."

Knuckles grimaced at the thought. "That won't be necessary."

Nodding, Christian turned to Sonic. "Do the same with, Mikey. Tuck your head low."

"Way ahead of ya, man."

It wasn't long before Christian's observations came true. Sure enough the bots opened the wired gates and bottlenecked the prisoners through the entrance. Knuckles' head was lowered to his chest, it covered tightly by the vulcan suit with his hands tucked inside the sleeves. He laughed at himself for he looked like a space-aged monk. However, his amusing thoughts vanished with the bots's commands, they were the same orders and demands he expected to come from their CPU's; hurry up, move on. He honestly wondered what their big hurry was. It wasn't like they had a wife and kids to go home to.

Entering the compound for Sonic was painstakingly slow. He swore his eyes were fixed to the roof of his sockets as he constantly had them up and sweeping side to side, grabbing as much of a look as he could. When the group's pace quickened, so did his. Mikhail's back had become a tractor beam to Sonic, pulling him invisibly towards the gate but shadowing him from prying sensors. Apprehension soon followed. Getting closer to the entrance, bots lined both sides in good numbers; five...maybe six, he observed, became unnerving to him. He was cramped, no where to run; no where to spin.

Three paces from the threshold his lungs tightened as he held the air within them. One step, followed by another...then the last. His head dropped down lower just on reflex. The shuffling feet all around him tensed his ears, fighting to hear any sort of alarm that may come from his presence.

None did.

Air slipped from his nostrils, expunging his held breath every so softly. But he wasn't out of the woods yet. He continued following the beagle, noticing he was doing the same with Christian. Passing through the first block of huts they turned sharply to the south, coasting a pace faster than they had arrived with. Christian side stepped to the left hut, arriving at a closed wooden door with one step on the ground to gain entry. Just as he opened the door, the whole camp went dark, shunts from the circuit breakers opening to kill the power drowned out the silence of the night. Light, however, poured out from the door, beckoning sanctuary to the five and other mobians that called the place home. Stepping in behind Mikhail, his ears were met with gasps and dropped clothes.

"Where's Lemeans?" Mikhail asked as soon as he came through the door.

A tired, weary, and heavily English accented voice answered through the bewildered onlookers. "Here, Mikhail. Tell me, have you brought a package?"

Knuckles eased his head up, searching for the voice that called from the standing bunks on either side of the wall. Most held vulcan suits and other clothes from the support struts, others totally occupied with a warm, exhausted body.

"_Da_. And they in good condition."

Silence echoed the summons for the three Freedom Fighters. Mikhail lead the way through the cramped quarters, weeding through the bodies of mobians that stood and gawked at his trailing entourage. Some didn't know who Knuckles was, but most did know about Sonic. And even with their excitement, they held true to their collective selves. Naked incandescent light bulbs hung from the rafters, three total and making the hut feel more like a dungeon to Knuckles' alert mind. As their journey to the rear of the hut neared the end, his surroundings darkened. Christian was right behind him, expressing the same feelings Knuckles had.

"Salutations," said the soft spoken voice. When Mikhail stopped and stepped aside, his body reviled a dingy furred leopard, his eyes wearing heavy from the lack of sleep and energy, slouching peacefully in a hastily made wooden chair. He found comfort with a blue, single breasted shirt, unbuttoned from the collar down to his abdomen, slit with holes from his occupation at the camp. Feet shoeless and propped up on a stool, however a pair of boots at the ready by their master. "I have been expecting you since this afternoon," he continued, smiling and bowing with dignity instilled in the gesture. "You can take off those hot articles, you are safe here now. Brilliant by the way, using those to get in. I have been much eager in hoping you would come. After David told of his encounter in the field and what you had said to him...well, here you are."

"Yea, here we are," Sonic festered. "Mind telling us what the heck has been going on around here?"

"Easy, lad. These walls are thin and they do have ears on the outside. Now, to your question. No doubt you have seen the oil fields and I might add, the docks." Nods were passed around the huddled group. "Well, that pretty much sums it up there. However, I'm afraid though, our use to them is coming to an end." This spurted frightened looks followed by puzzled brows; Knuckles crossing his mitts in front of his chest. "You see, they haven't sent any replenishment prisoners, and more and more of the guard force is going off to construct the docks."

Christian stepped forward, his indifference scribbled across his face. "And you haven't told us about it, yet? We're in this together, Lemeans. Anything effecting our lives should be known to us. Not your little group."

"There's more of you?" Knuckles asked with a hint of a growl.

"One to each hut," the leopard replied before turning his attention to Christian. "Of all people, Christian, you should know about the need-to-know basis. If I tell people who I still don't know, we could all be in a serious jam."

Christian grew angry at the answer. "Ah...okay. And what about those guys from Knothole. Why didn't you tell us about their blitz?"

Lemeans swayed his head around, uncaring. Knuckles wasn't impressed. "Because, Christian, I told them not to. We weren't ready. Since I didn't tell you, more lives were saved--"

Legs became the focal point of his rage, propelling Christian at the nonchalant leopard. "You son of a–"

Knuckles grabbed him from moving on Lemeans, stopping Christian at mid-sentence and mid-flight. Sonic was ready for back-up, watching a gray hare step out from behind a bunk and giving cover to the leopard. Muffled shouts lathered the heavy air, only becoming silent when hard knocks came from the front door. Sonic ducked between a bunk to his right while Knuckles found a nook on the others side, dragging Christian along with him. Antoine froze where he stood.

Seconds inched passed; nothing came of them.

"They're locking us in," Lemeans explained after a few moments, his voice relaxed. "As I said, you are safe."

"If you say so, dude!" Sonic scoffed. Easing himself away from the wall, he stepped back in front of Lemeans, peeved. "So what, you've been waiting for us all this time to come? Why didn't you help the guys from Knothole? They're just as good as us!"

"Were. They were too anxious, Sonic, and their motives were a little different."

"How so, Monsieur?" Antoine asked, tempered as well.

Lemeans relaxed to seriousness, breathing in some. "They were a pair of St. John's agents and they were looking to get out anyway they could. The information they had was of your Commander's interest. If they would have waited a little longer, our time might've come to get out."

"You know, you sound like Geoffrey. You sure you two weren't split from the same gene?" Sonic said, mockingly.

"I'm sure...we just come from the same line of work. When you get back to Knothole, you tell him his operations cover is sacked. His agents in the field are in jeopardy and it's time to sell the house and get out."

"That can be arranged," Knuckles said evenly.

"Very well. Now, I heard you have a plane."

"We are working on one," Sonic chimed in.

"Great. Any ideas? We have a lot of sick here and the nearest village is about two-hundred miles from here. Edgewood, I believed it's called. They're still holding out I gather, right David?"

The young chipmunk from the afternoon made his way to front, smiling eagerly at Knuckles and the rest. "Yes sir. They can take a good portion of us, but I don't think they could tend the ill."

"Okay," Lemeans nodded, then considered in silence. "How about you? Do you have transport of any kind?"

"A boogie," Sonic said, "it's past the sunflower field and doesn't have much in the way of first class seating."

"Can you call for one then?" David inquired.

Sonic looked to Antoine. "'Twan, you have Nicole with you?"

"Oui."

"We can call a cab from Knothole," Sonic bolstered back.

Lemeans nodded. "Okay, what about the guards. There's about fifteen here, maybe less after today."

A slant smile. "We can take care of some of them, but not a whole lot. You wouldn't happen to have any pilfered weapons, do you?"

"Afraid not, Sonic."

Mikhail stepped forward from his post by a bunk. "The bots have weapons. We can take their's once we sack a few."

"Bad idea, Mikey," Christian put in. "As soon as it goes down, they won't give us much of a chance. We need to break and run as fast as possible."

A pregnant pause came over the hut, onlookers watching on while peering through the slits in the walls, watching for any roving bots.

"Hey, what if we nail a few before we make a break for it?" David blurted out.

Lemeans smiled under his whiskers. "I think I know a kid with a sling-shot that could be handy."

"Make sure he get one with pulse-launcher," Mikhail announced with a devilish grin. "Could come in handy."

"We'll see what happens, Mikey. Don't go overboard just yet," Christian scolded, turning his face away from the convening crowd.

Knuckles took note of the hint of sadness but determination in his expression. "Hey, you have me here. Nothing to sweat over–"

"It's not that Guardian." Christian said with a wave, leaning his back against the wall.

Mikhail took the statement as a cue. "Yes...tell them what they did to you, my friend. Those pigs have no mercy for even our feelings. Rotten scum they are. I spit on their hulks when they cease to move."

Knuckles turned his attention to Christian this time, his expression asking the questions.

A swallow and a blink started the pain. "They took my wife away from me yesterday. And her brother. It was like they had it in for me, Guardian."

"Just them?" Sonic asked, turning his attention towards Lemeans.

A curt nod from the leopard. "Displeasing, isn't it."

Knuckles brought sincerity to his stare, peering deep inside Christian's. "They were Chameleons, right?"

Christian nodded under a grimacing face and streaming eyes. "Yeah."

"We were zent here to find a code word or zomethizing about _Chameleons_," Antoine pointed out.

"Yeah. We got wind of this from a new cipher that's been a real pain to crack," Sonic added.

Lemeans peered back to the gray hare behind him. "Leo, they grabbed those two not long after the execution?"

"Yes. Promising us freedom if we do as we're told."

Knuckles put in this time. "Who said _that_?"

"It came through the speakers," David explained. "Eggman watches us from time to time here, but he sounded as if he had a cold."

"_Cold_?" Sonic festered. "Kinda nasally?"

"Yea..."

"Ohhh, zhat ain't Eggman." said 'Twan eerily.

"Yeah, that's Snively," Knuckles concurred. "And they took them away right after the execution?"

Christian nodded, remaining speechless.

"Now that doesn't make any sense. What would baldy want with two Chameleons?" Sonic questioned in ponder.

"I don't know, but we better inform Knothole of our findingz." Antoine said.

"Out of the question, I'm sad to say," said Lemeans I don't trust any transmission leaving out of here to be unheard. Best we ask for a transport before we breakout and only then."

"I'm game with that," Sonic agreed.

"Very well," bolstered the leopard, slapping his hand on his lap in excitement. "Lets feed our travelers and get them bunked down. We might need to throw you under the rug come morning, but the beds here aren't quite as bad as they look."

And that they did. The trio of Freedom Fighters possibly never had Sunflower bread and soup in one sitting, and Knuckles knew he never would again. It was all dry and tasteless. Thoughts of why they hadn't broken out to begin with helped ease his tensioned mind. Bunking down for the night, he grew restless, hopping to sleep but knowing it was going to be haunting. The idea of the enemy just mere inches away from him wasn't coming easy.

Then he reflected to his past thought, one that became his escape once again from the ever present danger from the outside. _"I have a brother..."_

* * *

o how was it this round. Lemeans is a bit of a bastard isn't he. And what do you think of Mikhail. Please leave your reviews at the door. Tell me how I am doing.How is the plot coming? 

Well, our next adventure goes back to the Albion. In the name of Dimitri.

* * *


	20. Worrisome Premonitions

* * *

Hello. Sorry for my long absence but my new job has me isolated from places with internet and of many important things in my life. Compartativly you all.The good news is I have a lot of drafts ready for the editing phase and a few more chapters will be posted up before long. The story is getting further to be completed and the plot is picking up it's pace.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights to the original creators of Sonic the Hedgehog and all of his friends and sidekicks and of course, stand to gain no profit from this.

And now...we read on as a young Echinda's crossroads will lead him to life changing avenues...if he so chooses the route he wants to travel.

Enjoy and please review. Thanks toe Rad Red 08 for the postive feedback, though some negative and pointers will be nice and handy.

* * *

**Worrisome Premonitions**

By: Mauser

* * *

Nata-Le awoke to rain tapping on the glass beside her bed, and the urge to drink something to clear the cotton that sat in her throat. Her request wasn't of words but of a depressed moan. With it came her eyes tearing from the sudden burn of the overhead florescent light searing at her pupils as she fought to open them. The urge to wipe her face, like so many mornings she was so accustomed to, was met with a phantom feeling from her left shoulder, followed with a numbing ache and a scratchy sensation on strands of cloth. Her alertness of her location rolled over the fogginess of her drowsy mind, and trumped her next words as she rotated her head to the door.

"_Wesson_..."

The raspy voice that she was coming to find comfort with didn't resonated over the steady beeping of the medical machines around her. In its stead, though, came a brightened voice, one not altered by war which she was wanting to hear. But nonetheless, a very familiar one.

"Nata-Le! Ames...she's coming to!"

Worrisome eyes of a red echidna came into focus, her mouth gaping all the same in an expression with her dreads falling past her brunet, cropped hair, and long-sleeved purple sweater. Nata-Le gasped in surprise and joy upon seeing her mother, raising her arm out to embrace her, though her heart was yearning for someone else to hold on to.

Behind Car-Le came the deep, rough booming voice of her father. "Easy, dear. She's been through a lot. Her strength isn't up to that kind of a hug yet."

She didn't let up on her daughter, holding her tight as if she might be whisked away. "This wasn't supposed to happen. My little girl wasn't supposed to get..." Car-Le's voice was overcome with grief, willing a hand free to cover her mouth as to trap-in her despair. Seeing the sight of her daughter now, imperfect from the day she was born, echoed a tempting notion deep within her mind to step back and not gawk for fear she might bring about more pain instead of comfort to Nata-Le.

A brown echidna stepped three paces to support Car-Le, his face one of impassiveness–like he would be one to take leisure with an elegant pipe. He was graying at the brows, and his thinning, black hair was receding to one side while the other was still deciding whether to save his current color, or go gray as well; wearing a matching single breasted blazer that was required for the social party they had partaken of the night before. Ames said nothing, holding back his thoughts while caressing his wife's free hand.

Car-Le, however, had a lot on her mind:

"I feared this would happen...I just prayed it wouldn't come true. You didn't have to prove anything, Nata-Le."

Ames broke his silence, easing his voice to hopefully bring peace with Car-Le before a full war would ensue. "It was on her own initiative, dear."

"You talked her into this," Car-Le spat in return. "You said honor would be had to serve her people--"

"I said 'it would bring honor if you did, but it was up to you'. I never forced anything upon her."

Nata-Le's eyes drifted to the chair by the wall, finding it empty and not containing her savior from her quarreling parents. "Wesson?" she called out concernedly, hoping he was absent just by an earshot.

His whisper never came.

"Oh Nata-Le, dearest," said her mother, peckishly, "you can see you friends after we make you well; and as soon as we can get you discharged from the service–"

Nata-Le shut her eyes tightly, ignoring her mother's pampering wishes. "Where's Wesson?" she repeated, flexing her voice to a degree of annoyance, however sobbing all the same.

"Nata-Le...stop worrying about others, and think of yourself and us," Car-Le interjected.

Ames, in his protest let go of her hand. "Car-Le, please control yourself. We can talk about this later–"

"Later?...When, Ames. When we've forgotten about this. They weren't supposed to go out past the protection of the shield." Her chocolate eyes fell upon her daughter, who was paying no attention to neither of them while climbing upright in the bed. "Why did you volunteer...Why didn't you just take a posting on a street corner and keep the peace like you said–"

"Mother! Stop! Daddy, _where's_ Wesson?"

Ames noted the fragile look in his daughters eyes, but he couldn't give a qualified answer to ease them. Making matters worse instead of better, Car-Le lost all control of her flustered self."Don't start ordering me, young lady! I'm your mother...I've should have been it before you made this rash decision, and hurting–"

"WHERE'S WESSON!" Nata-Le's screaming demand was followed by her tears, pulling her arm over her eyes as she wanted nothing more to do with whom she thought would give her love and comfort. She now wanted Wesson to fulfil that need now more than ever.

Giving no care if his dinner this night was going to be cold or take-out, Ames was about to slam his foot down to cease his wife's ranting of overprotectiveness when a firm voice filled with a disciplined aura of bearing stopped him all together, and summoned his attention to the door behind him.

"He's on mission, Centurion. I'm afraid the Field Marshal needed him this morning to pick-up a gift."

Ames stared for more than a moment at the long dreads, littered cybernetic parts, and of course, the red echidna's robotic arm in which he knew Nata-Le was going to receive sometime this day. "Who is this Wesson, might I ask?"

Nata-Le jumped first but not answering the proposed question. "He's out again? He said he was going to stay with me, Ell-Tee, so I didn't have to go through with what he did."

His dreads sagged, the tips dappling the floor as he sighed. "Troopers like Wesson come in short supply– which, I might add, you have none to go around. I'm sorry, Nata-Le, but he is needed."

"And you don't need to be worrying about 'boys' anyhow, Nata-Le," Car-Le said irritable, "I'm sure this _Wesson_ won't care for you after he's through with what he wants. We do, and we'll care for you."

Ames never turned to see his daughter's damaged expression from her mother's words, keeping his fixed eyes on the Legionnaire, who's face glowered at the back of Car-Le. One part of Amuse was amused while the honored husband was ready to stand to protect his wife.

Ell-Tee's voice boomed in bitterness all the while still keeping his commanding tone. "This _Wesson_ is the reason why you two aren't burying your daughter instead of giving her an earful of this horse-squeeze."

"It's the truth, _sir_..." Car-Le's barking voice trailed when she turned and took one look at Ell-Tee, wanting to swallow her fright upon contact with the image of the trooper.

"_Heh_...more like wishing she was a prep-girl instead of a life saver," Ell-Tee scoffed. Ames' inquiring pose wasn't hard to miss in his stern eyes. "Your daughter saved a lot of people last night, sir. You should be proud of her."

"I gather I should," Ames replied, his low, booming voice gaining more approval from Ell-Tee, unlike the man's wife who he was ready to slap.

"Yes, sir."

"Is he going to come back, Ell-Tee," Nata-Le managed to say, her voice shaken still as she laid back down.

The Legionnaire's brows sank into a hard, affirming stare, giving a slight bow of the head to reenforce his conclusion. "Oh yes, ma'am. Right now, I know Wesson is quite determined to get back here as soon as he can."

"And why's that, sir?" Ames questioned evenly.

* * *

"_I hate getting wet."_

But at least he didn't feel his sore leg from the crouched position he was imposing on himself, swiveling his head to the north and south as the rest of him faced west, towards Albion if his bearings were true. It was hard to tell from the current mood of the dim morning; ill gray clouds letting the rain fall in moderate showers, while leaving a mist mixed with a lingering fog around the gaping cluster of trees he was peering around. Wesson was approaching his second hour of playing out in the bush, his black jacket soaked through-and-through, which still had Nata-Le's bloodstains permanently embedded in the thick fabric, and drenching his fur underneath, creating the sticky sensation he loathed to feel; not discounting the water beads that slipped off the metal replacement for skin on his snout.

Letting his bionic eye gauge the distant to the next small clearing, Wesson relaxed his carbine from his left shoulder and waited for the rustling sounds of his care-package trailing behind him. He didn't have to wait long, glancing over his shoulders before looking to new territory high above. Seminole was late once more, and that was never good.

Rob-O stepped lightly to Wesson's left side, noticing the cybernetic echidna tightening his brown heavy gloved hand around the handle of his carbine. "We're not to far off, friend. Just a few more hops, and we're there."

"_Good,"_ Wesson silently mused, searching the undergrowth void slightly to his right. Dormant were the sounds of the inhabiting wildlife, replaced by the heavy water drops that leaped from leaf to leaf before taking the final fall to the thickly vegetated ground. The pelting rhythm became the trigger that washed the dark green emerald of the forest into a lightened pink; scared eyes flashing in his. Wanting eyes caressing his battle-hardened gaze.

"_Get back to the mission,"_ he forced out over Nata-Le's face. Maybe that was why he was wanting back to Albion? Why his heart felt as if it was in control instead of his training.

More muffled sounds of the soft underbelly of the forest crept up behind him. He didn't look, letting Mari-An's voice identify her instead of Dirk, who was holding the rear down with his trained crossbow. "We appreciate you escorting us to Albion to meet with the council, young man."

Wesson lifted his head back just enough to keep his attention to the front; he thought he heard something to the southwest. "Thank the Field Marshal–I'm only doing my job." Letting silence become the bait for sound, he waited for the far off movement to resume before he said; "Your message was received loud and clear last night, ma'am."

"I gather that is why we are summoned to meet with Gal-Na?"

Wesson only nodded, holding in a snickering smile that he wanted to let loose, however, the current situation didn't allow it. And the heavy movement cominh from his intending direction had just resumed. Looking to Rob-O, Wesson kept his face in the best resemblance of seriousness that he could manage over his hardware. "Get that flying stick ready...I think we're being stalked."

Rob-O didn't need to hear the warning twice, reaching behind his back and plucking an arrow from his quiver before lacing the bow-string inside the nock. "Where's your bird?" he asked, his fingers posed in the Mediterranean three-finger fashion around the nock and string.

"_Detouring_," Wesson growled in return, knowing now what was possibly keeping Seminole.

Climbing to his feet, the Legionnaire motioned for the three Mercians to travel west, letting him take the rear while Dirt and Rob-O leading point. It was only logical since Rob knew the lay of the land much more than he, and furthermore, his little carbine had a bit more of an effective killing range than the blunt weapons the Mercians fashioned.

They rounded the clearing, keeping well away from the opening while keeping check of their immediate surroundings. Wesson's enhanced ears were becoming the spark of his worries. The steadily approaching movement became defined, servos and hydraulic actuators announcing the machines' presence in the woods–four, possibly five from what he could tell from their patterned steps. What was working for him was the four hundred yard distance between him and them, plus the mile berth Rob-O's resistence group had from their current position deep in Deer Wood Forest.

Wesson stopped suddenly when Seminole's ruffling feathers registered over the approaching bots and the rain. Pivoting to the rear he placed his carbine in his lap and extended the heavy glove out for his osprey to land on. Seminole came blazing in well below the safety of the canopy while pumping his wings for speed. When he landed, he was breathing hard.

"Master, approaching bots to the southwest–"

"I know, Seminole! Numbers and weapons?" Wesson asked quickly, seeing his accompany party making their way to them.

"Four, Master. Two with pulse arms, and the last with swords. They're spread in a wide formation. They're scouting."

"They're not hunting us...they just got lucky," Wesson snuffed in annoyance.

"So, do we take them out?" Dirk quietly asked, kneeling beside Rob-O. "Less to worry about later."

"Wrong, there be more to come. My orders are to avoid any contact with any opposition we come across. We can't compromise Albion with a little grudge match."

"Order's, Master?" Seminole eagerly asked.

Wesson held a searching stare to the direction of the approaching threat. "Get back to Vickers and Craig, and tell them to get down. We might be running a little late."

The bird of prey nodded and leaped up in the air before flapping his wings to gain flight.

Wesson then turned to Rob-O. "We need to hurry. I can't hear any other threats, but those bots will be in sensory range real soon."

The hedgehog nodded. "Whatever you say, friend. You seem to be better attuned to this than we."

A curt nod was all that was needed to urge the three to move on. Taking the rear once more, he kept with the fast pace that Dirk was setting. For a surprisingly bulky wolf he was fast on his feet, navigating through the forest hardly without a menial slow in pace, his armed crossbow ready to propel the bolt at a moments notice. Mari-An, however was doing her best to keep up, Rob-O hoovering around her backside while keeping focus to the west. He was seriously thinking of cutting the excess fabric of her dress thus converting it into a skirt so she could liberate her hands to keep balance over the fallen trees. Another dress could be made for her. Another one of her couldn't.

The terrain was becoming quite littered with hulks of down trunks, some covered up from the growing ferns while others still held the brown colors true from their days of rotting. Wesson felt as if he was traversing a living canyon, shallow enough to go along with ease, but deep enough to cling for cover. He feared he was going to need it in the next evolution. With that thought and the groaning sounds of the fast moving bots becoming clearer, brought his training to the forefront and called him to slow; and gaze to the westward surroundings. He kept moving all the same, watching intently for a color, a texture, a being that didn't belong in the gray-green backdrop–

_THREAT!_

"_DOWN_!" he forced out in a hoarse, demanding voice.

Dirk was the first to heed the warning, throwing himself down to the ground, narrowly colliding with a shredded stump to his left, and crushing a bundle of floor-vines under his bare, fur chest. Rob-O followed suite, diving with Mari-An behind a fallen log and laying flat on his back, his wife tucked beside his left on her stomach. Wesson didn't fare as well as he wanted in the pursuit of cover, finding himself behind two laying logs, crossed and on top of each other, but they were mere saplings that exposed enough of his rising chest to have him worried.

He lay still, breathing shallowly, disciplining the rise of his chest all the while stealing a quick peek from his right cybernetic eye with the slightest lift of his head. When two bots emerged out from behind a large oak tree, dodging three smaller maples to their left, the Legionnaire scout lowered himself as far as he could go, thumbing the safety to his carbine to full-auto, and groping for the pistol on his belt kit. The rain was an ally at this point, allowing his minor adjustments on the ground to be shadowed within the drops, which pelted his face, causing involuntary twitches that he soon ignored. He lay motionless from then on; never looking; never tensing from the muffled vibrations that grew stronger, becoming the mild thunder from which the moderate drizzle wasn't producing.

His heart seemed to move him around; beating stronger when the servos slowed. Snaps, ravaged leaves, followed with the hydraulic groans became deafening to the one who lived in quietness. It all became torture to him, wondering at that instant how the other three to his right were coping. The thoughts of them feed the killer instinct in him to place his finger across the trigger of his carbine. He was poised; ready to kill.

Now he called on the very discipline that has saved him from recce runs before. To stay calm; to stay silent; to hold back the urge to either fight or bolt for a false safety. He had never told anyone of the times he was so scarred of Death literally being inches away from him. The times he almost wetted himself from almost getting killed, the times he was severely wounded but managed to keep it together to make it back to get patched up, and sent out once more. Run after run made him feel comfort with his surroundings. But he was always scarred. Possibly why he had out lived his trainer.

Possibly why they weren't all dead now!

A crunch sent terror through his bones. The Eggbots couldn't have been more than mere feet away, searching around to his right, and progressively moving northeast, however not east enough. Turning his head back to his mission, he was confronted by the sight of Rob-O preparing to do something that sent every nerve impulse in his soaked body to his brain, calling him to shiver in panic.

The hedgehog's bow was cocked back with his fingers, an arrow ready to launch upon the release of the string, laying it flat on its side. He nodded his head at Wesson, letting his eyes tell the truth of the echidna's situation. Just behind the Legionnaire, the crunching of moist leaves giving out the distance, approached a bot who was nearly right on top of him. In one step, Rob-O gathered, the machine would at least see the boots of Wesson, if not his black and out of place BDU's.

Just before the bot took the needed step, Rob-O with his perfect aim let fly his arrow, sending it on an arching flight above the bots's head. The wafting air from the fletchings did the first job of the diversion, causing the machines to stop dead. Then, the arrow itself added to the finale, striking the hanging branches, stems, and leaves as it flew to an unseen destination.

Wesson rolled his head back over to the east, bearing witness to the shoulder of an Eggbot. It stood there; calculating. Computing. If the thing turned back to its present course, all hell was going to break loose. If the thing so much twitched in his direction, Wesson would be the first to commence the shooting.

It moved...to the left; east!

The echidna still didn't move a hair, waiting for more sounds of the machines to head in the same direction as their counterpart. And they did, slower than what he wanted, but the world wasn't perfect. Seconds ticked by, the thunder of their foot steps grew weaker. Switching to his enhanced hearing modulators, he listened for a change in their course. After a long pause of unmeasurable time, they kept crawling along, never diverting.

And from there, Wesson shot from the ground and rushed to Rob-O, who was struggling to do the same. "It won't be long before they get wise. We need to hurry!"

"You said it, friend," replied the aqua furred hedgehog, assisting Mari-An to her feet. "Just keep close."

* * *

The soft sand had turned to mud.

Vickers, however, ignored it while keeping Ell-Tee's auto-cannon trained to the woods, perched high on the embankment with him and Craig concealed behind the sandy cliff. Twenty-three minuets had passed since Seminole came with Wesson's message, and Craig was growing the more anxious to go out and get him and his package.

"Easy, Craig," Vickers cautioned. "No need to get worked up over some stupid bird."

"We need to go get him. Something's happened--"

The Legionnaire, who was wearing the Centurion's blue battledress still, cut him off with a shake of his head. "Nothing's wrong, Craig. Wesson's good at what he does. He's the only scout I know that I have to call Sergeant."

The Centurion never replied, only gawking for a moment before retreating his attention to the woods, his plasma rifle trained all the same.

A sudden fluttering of feathers brought both of their alert minds to the rear, finding Seminole landing on Craig's black boots as if they were a perch. "Their coming. Not far from the tree line."

Craig shot his head back to the forest, just in time to see a weak, red blinking light out of the corner of his right eye. "I see 'em, Vickers. Signal the all clear."

And that the Legionnaire did, producing his own pen light and flashing it to the wood line. On the third press of the black pen, a grey wolf appeared from the forest, pumping his legs across the soaked field with his crossbow trailing by his side. It wasn't long before Mari-An appeared, keeping a steady pace while Rob-O held her hand to the right side of her. When Dirk landed below the cliff-line and Rob-O and his wife were halfway, Wesson darted out of the woods, limping somewhat but still running at a lightning pace. Caution went to the wind for him, clutching his carbine by the trigger guard and not poised on his shoulder with any real tactical sense.

His last step was a leap, dropping down beside Rob-O and Dirk. "We're good, let's get going, now!"

"Roger that!" Vickers replied, collapsing the bi-pod on the auto-cannon before taking up the rear for the journey back across the water, watching something in Wesson's stride that made him worry for the Sergeant's sake.

He wasn't himself.

* * *

"_Relax. He'll be fine."_

But Stenson's optimism wasn't pouring out like the rain he was entrenched with. The slapping of the heavy drops on the concrete balcony echoed through the sliding glass doors he was standing in front of, watching the elegant river of water glide down the pane which reflected the shadows of the heavier ripples across his hard, musing face. A long, deep sigh budged his stiff arms across his bare chest, wondering if he should listen to his inner self to fully put on his black cotton jumpsuit to defend against the cold room, or still try to figure out Wesson and bear with Lar-Na's warm nature.

Wesson won out.

The reflection of the young Sergeant's face replaced Stenson's on the pane. What was he so worked up about him for? Was it sending him out in the field with an irritating injury that in Wesson's line of occupation could mean a bad day on the job, or sending him out when he was noticeably tired? Or was he _tired_? The drive Stenson witnessed last night was a rebirth of the Sergeant's soul, but something told him the motives had changed. Wesson's posture, the sight of his face reflecting sorrow with determination before setting out with Nata-Le in his arms; the conclusion from both those points sprang a different anxiety that only a seasoned leader, like Stenson himself, would fear. A change in the warrior persona. Not of wanting not to protect or lay down his arms...but a change in his allegiance.

And thus he returned to his original optimistic thought, sighing it out at himself through the reflection as an audible mutter. "Maybe..."

"What was that?" came Lar-Na's alert voice from the foot of the bedroom door.

Stenson broke his pensive stare to the outside and brought it around to his wife. She was glimmering in the strong lighting, her blue fur still damp from the warm shower she had just come out of, and wearing a satin burgundy gown over her black, but clean blouse. Just the mere presence of her brought a smile to Stenson's lips and away from his worries just for the moment.

"Just thinking, my Mistress," he answered after gazing over Lar-Na once more.

A salacious smirk preceded the feeling of Stenson undressing her with his eyes. "I bet you are."

Turning back to the sliding glass door, the Field Marshal sighed and dug his chin in his chest, finding himself venturing back to the source of his stiff mood. He didn't get far when Lar-Na stepped up behind him, gently rubbing her fine hands across his back, brushing his fur up and tickling him ever so slightly when they fell back into place, then, attempting to entice his arousal further, she let her hand fall to his tail, rubbing the very tip with the finesse of a violinist playing a gentle night-song.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked after letting the enjoyable moment pass.

"For once, yes," Lar-Na replied in a playful voice. "Having another warm body in the bed to snuggle with is a great _help_."

The ploy she was letting out was never taken. Stenson kept his vacant stare out at the window, arms crossed.

"So, where's Ell-Tee?" she asked, taking the silence as a cue that something was afoot.

"Doing some errands for me."

"Okay...so what's going down that I don't know about?" she asked next, letting her voice become stern.

"I have Wesson out getting Rob-O. We're to meet with the council–"

"You've done, _what_!?" Lar-Na replied with a muffled shrill.

"I know it's not one of my better judgements!" Stenson admitted stubbornly, leaning his head over to address his guilty conscious with his wife.

A glowering face consumed Lar-Na's elegant features. "After what he's been through last night and what he's going through _now_?"

"He'll be fine, Lar-Na! He's good at what he does and he isn't cocky like the 'retired' scouts he has out lasted. If I had someone else in his field-craft, I would have used him instead."

"That's not what I meant, _Field Marshal_." Lar-Na watched Stenson's head sulk down ever so slightly with a troubled sigh. "He's in love, Stenson," she put in evenly.

It was undeniable at this point for Stenson. The second opinion he didn't want to hear came from the very lips he cherished. _"It takes a woman to see the touch."_ he said inwardly. And the statement was true to a degree that she was forthcoming about it, while he made himself blind.

But the picture he still saw that ranged in his head; going to get Wesson; seeing that he wasn't in his room; finding him by Nata-Le, guarding her as it were. Then, the face that he was being robbed of something, a face that he felt ashamed for breaking an unspoken promise. Leaving her when his body language said he refused to go. But he went anyway. And it bothered Stenson.

"What I was afraid of," he finally answered.

"Why?" Lar-Na questioned in a turned-off tone of voice.

A grumbling sigh with an irritable shacking of the head. "I need him, Lar-Na. Our _new_ purpose needs him...I can't have his allegiance go to some girl–"

There was no playfulness from the impact. Lar-Na's soft hands buried her knuckles in his back which surprised him to the extend that he broke his brutish mood to pivot around and gaze at his wife's seething face.

"Of all Echidnas, _Stenson_, you go off and say something like that in front of _me_!"

Stenson swallowed his temptation to speak, fearing his retort would bring more fury than he wanted from his now tempered wife.

"You fell in love with me over the _Cause_! You married me against _our__tradition_! And now you say such filth when one of your own gets touched!"

"I need him, Lar-Na. _We_ need him! Not many scouts have out lived their reputation as well as Wesson has," the Field Marshal explained in a low tone. "I can't lose one more, and how good he is would be a set back if I should loose _him–_"

"You talking as if his touch is his death, Stenson! How could you?" Lar-Na bite in reply.

Stenson choose his words carefully in an instant. "He _is_ if he keeps thinking about her. A distracted trooper is a dead one."

"Then why have you lived for so long, _husband_?" Lar-Na countered with a hiss. Stenson's silence showed her point was delivered properly. She continued to fume, her arms crossed along with her face; "Let him choose, Stenson. If you're afraid that he might get killed because he is distracted by her, then let him choose if he wants to live. He deserves it, and you owe it to him; especially the way you treat him like he is our son."

"They are all my children, Lar-Na. You know that."

"But you treat him differently, dear husband," Lar-Na put in, letting her voice die to somberness. "You've kept your eye on him for the past six months after they brought him in half-dead, and ever since then you've treated him as more than just a mere trooper."

He kept his gaze at his wife's eyes, letting his lower in defeat. "You don't have to bring _this_ up."

"It's too late for that, Stenson," Lar-Na said in a quiet voice. "I'm not bitter at myself or you that I can't bear you a son or daughter. I'm bitter at you 'cause you didn't share Wesson like you should have in the first place. When you told me he was an orphan, I was ready to bring him in. But instead, you kept him all to yourself–"

"There's a war going on, Lar-Na," Stenson interjected, squinting at the reminder. "If he was my son I still would have used his _talents_ to win the objective of victory–"

"And if he was _your_ son, you would let him fall in love and become _lost_." Lar-Na swallowed her temper, letting her eyes glow in saddened disbelief. "Let him choose, Stenson...please."

The Field Marshal surrendered his eyes and feelings to the floor. Lar-Na's words really didn't strike him at first, letting them roll in his head as if they were a riddle and not of simple reason. His total focus was on the war to free the oppressed; back home and now here. One loss of anything of logistical value–and Echidna power was valued the highest–one simple battle could be lost, and one major war could go with it because he didn't have _one_ echidna that he needed. And that one Echidna that has proven his worth as how Ell-Tee put "in micro chips" was Wesson. His actions, his skill, his drive has helped the war in a great deal of ways. But alas, Stenson mused, only to prolonge the suffering.

So, was it worth it?...To loose one valuable trooper in the greatest times of need? For his own drive for love? He couldn't answer the question in full. It wasn't fully a commander's place.

However, his wife's short cough jostled the caring husband over the determined, and firm leader. When Lar-Na tensed to breathe, things became full circled. He was denying.

Placing his right hand gently on Lar-Na's left shoulder, just as two muffled knocks came to the door, he offered his voice in sympathetic defeat that matched the mood of his face. "I'll let him choose, Lar-Na."

Reaching up on her bare tip-toes on the whim of his voice, Lar-Na kissed him on the cheek before taking his side. It was all that was needed for a thanks.

A quick, deep breath returned the Field Marshal of the Dark Legion in Stenson's body and posture. "Come," he commanded towards the door.

The door didn't necessarily fly open but it had that impression when Ell-Tee came charging in the room, his bearing ever present as he strode and locked himself down in front of the two. "Sergeant Wesson has returned, sir. He is coming up now."

"And his mission?" Stenson asked firmly. A single nod. "Very well, Ell-Tee. Stay here while I brief and talk things over with our guests and hopefully Allies by the end of the day."

The long dreaded Legionnaire snorted. "They will be _ours_, Field Marshal, but I wonder if this _council_ is going to have them."

"Your observation is noted, _Ell-Tee_," came back Stenson in annoyance.

Ell-Tee caught on quickly and strayed his boisterous thoughts from the now stiff air. Bowing his head, he scooted himself toward the door, stood at a relax attention, and began to wait. To his delight and the building uneasiness of Stenson and Lar-Na watching him with expressionless faces, small chatter followed by the creaking of wet shoes echoed down the long hallway that could lavish a king rather than a simple guest. And to his distressing nerves, their faces warmed when Rob-O stepped through the open door with Mari-An gliding behind him, the both dripping wet.

"Rob-O," greeted Stenson warmly, nodding and holding fast beside Lar-Na.

She on the other hand did the same, but her smile faded to one of a gifted concern which pardoned her to break away from Stenson. "Oh my," she dryly murmured at Mari-An's drenched rags for a dress, "come with me. I think I saw some nice clothes in the closet. Let's get you out of those before you catch cold."

Mari-An shook her head with a curled upper lip. "No thank-you, ma'am. I think the council needs to see the current state of our people just by my mere wrecked appearance."

Lar-Na was about to laugh in agreement, but Rob-O's touching hand to Mari-An ceased it. "Mari, please. I don't want you to get ill just being bent on sending messages. Go with her, get changed, and get warm."

"Okay, Rob," Mari-An replied, lovingly.

Turning her attention to Lar-Na, she bowed elegantly and awaited for the blue Echidna to take her to the wardrobe, but what she gathered as husband and wife had shifted their attentive eyes behind her, their faces frowning in passionate concern. Finding her curiosity becoming an internal compass to magnetic north, she turned around to see Dirk standing inside the door to the right, and he too peering out of it, his back turned.

All eyes fell on Wesson. He never moved from his position at the foot of the door, swaying some on his sore leg while balancing his carbine around the fingers of his gloved, mechanical hand. His impassive, obedient face over the replaced metal skin on the better part of his muzzle oriented around the room with the slightest of twitches, gathering his conclusions of the mixed feelings around the room.

"Sergeant," said Stenson in a leery, commanding voice, "you can come in."

A slight cock of the head. "I'm wet, _sir_," came the brittled voice in reply.

"We are all," said Dirk, sporting a smile which he offered around the room. He didn't receive any back.

A long pause lingered until Ell-Tee broke it. "Is your weapon still hot, Wesson?"

"Yes sir! And the safety is on."

Stenson put in this time. "Then drop the cell and come in."

"But I don't want to–"

"Sergeant Wesson," came Lar-Na's disarming voice that surprised even the Lieutenant. "Come in...it's alright."

Pinching his lips, darting his apprehensive eyes around the on-looking faces, Wesson took two drags of his boots and wiped them on the thin, but rather expensive carpet, and came inside. As he skiddishly made his way to the open kitchen near the right wall, he switched his carbine to his leathered gloved hand, pushed the release button on the right side and pulled the charged cell out, and placed it on the counter along with the weapon. And there he stood, emotionless, but his lowed torso clearly identified that something was eating him.

Stenson straightened his back–calling on his bearing to show Rob-O that he was an Echidna of principle, strength, and duty–and watched his wife lead Marie-An to their suite with a guiding hand at the back before he addressed the Sentry.

"Any problems on the way?"

Rob-O the Hedg offered a smiling sigh while leaning on his bow. "Ran into a bit of scouting party. I think they are looking for us from last night." The hedgehog shifted his head to the troubled Sergeant. "Wesson is very dependable and very keen to his objectives and us," he stated with immense pride to one who seemed without it before turning back to Stenson. "He got real close to being found out, but I let them go chase after my arrow and not him. If he was anyone of us, I think he would have blasted the machines just out of fear and trifle. And his bird is a life saver!"

Stenson took note of several things all at once before nodding and asking his next observation; Lar-Na coming back in with a handful of towels, heading in his direction; Ell-Tee slowly approaching Wesson; and Wesson not raising his head to the commendable words of the hedgehog. "So, where did they head-off to?"

"North-northwest where I had let fly my arrow. Wesson lead us northeast for I think several kilometers before we adjusted our direction. Smart fieldsmen; very aware of being counter-tracked..." Lar-Na stepped up beside him and handed him a towel with a smile. "Thank-you, milady. You are too kind. In fact I have to say the whole lot of you are. Your actions have been most appreciative in our time of despair."

An even face with a bow of his head. "Consider it as me scratching your back and your scratching mine..."

Ell-Tee's presence was noted, but Wesson never gazed at him. He was getting anxious and foul tempered just by waiting. "Her parents are there finally. Watch out for the mother; she already has an opinion about you and it ain't nice–"

"Is she okay, Ell-Tee?" spoke Wesson, is raspy voice lowered to a whisper.

He considered his words for a moment. "She's wanting you over them."

Wesson became startled when a warm, pink colored towel, which pushed Natal-Le's face deeper into his psyche, came across his neck with fine hands rubbing at his dreads, back and head. Casting an eye towards his back, he saw Lar-Na smiling in a worrisome way.

"When does she go in for her replacement?" she asked Ell-Tee with a side glance.

Looking to the clock above him, he replied, "Zero-eight-twenty, I heard. You have about five minuets to get there if you leaves now."

Wesson's look said it all; apprehension, anxiety, wanting. "May I, Mistress."

Lar-Na didn't let a moment pass. "Stenson, are you done with Wesson?" she said in one breath.

Lifting his nodding head up from Rob-O's imperative words, Stenson closed his eyes and nodded without a word. Nothing was needed to be said on the Sergeant's behalf.

Wesson took one last glance at Lar-Na, his expression on the brink of cracking into panic. "Thank you, Mistress–"

"You don't have time...get going, Sergeant!"

Squeezing between her and Ell-Tee, Wesson made his way to the door and bolted to the left and out, limping along as fast as he could run...passing a familiar looking brown echidna, who had a stack of papers in his hand, but never caring to study him further to conclude who he was. All Wesson saw with his determined eyes was the door to the elevator.

All he saw was Nata-Le's tearful face.

Yanar, however, stopped and looked on for a moment as Wesson rushed by him. Shrugging and shaking his head, he let any reason for the hast exit die and set out for his own at the suite. When he walked to the edge of the doorway, the conversations were in full swing.

"I'm not intruding, am I?" he announced brightly, taking note of Lar-Na's glowering mood the instant his voice filtered over the room.

"Not at all, Mr. Ambassador," Stenson returned, dryly, "glad you could make it."

"Yeah. What took you so long?" Lar-Na grumbled with a raised voice.

Stenson's bitten response shook the room. "Lar-Na! Do you mind, _dear_?"

She matched his aghast face. "As soon as they get themselves up to speed about things and communications!"

Yanar relinquished a nonchalantly smile. "Yes, it does flow slow around–"

"Please, Mr. Ambassador," Stenson interrupted with a wave of his hand, retreating his angered expression to one of disapproval. "Lar-Na, please help Marie-An into something more comfortable while _I_ address the problems at hand."

Lar-Na took that with pleasure; he was going to kick some tail around here. Curtly bowing her head to his wishes, she left them to their impending conversation and entered the suite, closing the double doors.

"Now," Stenson began once more, "where were we?"

"You were about to explain how _I_ was going to scratch your back, friend," Rob-O replied.

An agreeing nod continued his line of thoughts. "Yes. Your resistence needs to keep resisting for a diversion away from here."

"Oh, I see–"

Stenson lifted his hands up as a plea. "No, you don't. Listen. Eggman doesn't know of this place's location, _still_." He caught Yanar gulping on that one. "And for Albion's sake along with my cargo's, that is something that needs to stay that way. Where I placed you last night is a general area where I need you to concentrate your operations–"

"You mean our _survival_, don't you?"

Stenson let the comment go. "I need you to concentrate your operations there while Albion retrains their Centurions to do more offensive operations than just lying and waiting for their doom."

Yanar stepped up to the plate on the tail of Stenson's jeer. "We are trained and we can protect our city. We showed you this last night."

"No, Yanar," Stenson countered, annoyed, "all you showed me was that your army is going to ask questions instead of acting on training and instinct. Asking for advice in the middle of a firefight is _not_ good tactical sense."

Rob-O walked over to the kitchen counter, leaned his bow against it, and shrugged. "Okay, so we have to defend Albion while they train their army."

"That's _if_ we are allowed to retrain them," Yanar festered, waving the papers in his hand. "The council has to rule on this."

"And we know what they're going to say," Ell-Tee added with a snuff.

Dirk nodded, admiring Ell-Tee's words and his warrior posture. "They never really cared for us the first time; and so far they haven't cared for us now!"

Rob-O saw is cue and took it. "And what makes you think they are going to send the calvary when they get it trained, even now? They're more concerned about their 'utopia' than the people who guard it."

"Leave _that_ to me," Stenson replied, playing his voice in a deep monotone that resembled more of a growl.

Lar-Na and Marie-An entered the living room, laughing to Stenson's delight. Seeing his wife having a female to female conversation–and hearing some of it while laying out his plans–was uplifting. "Anyways. Yanar, you bring news for me?"

The Ambassador was glad to hear the question. "Yes...Angel Island will be passing over the mainland in about a week and half. More than enough time to get you back, loaded with more refugees and to come back–"

"And I will bring some _trusted_ troopers to come and help with the training."

Rob-O's face glowed with excitement. "Now I feel better about things."

It faded when Stenson brought forth the barrier that might not see it come true. "Unfortunately, I have to run this by Komissar, and she is no fool. I'm still plotting my words on how I am going to explain all this without her packing everything up and coming here...to conquer and live."

Lar-Na nodded. "Knowing Lien-Da, she just might pullout for this place."

"Hey, you can come and train," Yanar suggested. "Train our leaders and they can train the rest."

"It's a thought," Stenson answered after a moment of consideration. He then turned his attention back to Rob-O. "How are your supplies? Can you receive any from a port, air drop?..."

Rob-O's bowing, cocking head with shut eyes wasn't promising. "I'm afraid our ports are turned against us. Eggman has them, and he is using them to build these giant machines that float on the water."

It was as if a mythical oracle had told the Field Marshal he was going to live forever. The Legionnaire in him came alive, shouting "target" over and over in his head as he calculated weather he should ask more about it to feed the warrior craving or focus on the situation at hand. _"I wonder if it will be on the way out?"_

"Tell me more about these 'giant machines that float on water?'" he asked inquisitively. Lar-Na didn't miss the slight excitement in his voice.

"Best I can describe them is that they look like _Horseshoe crabs_. Dirk?" Rob-O said, turning towards the wolf, "you've seen Port Mercia after the take over, right?"

"A lot different from before."

Yanar jumped in the fray this time. "We've kept our eye on it too...along with the submersibles."

Now the image Rob-O put in Stenson's head came to light. "I knew those things sounded familiar. We helped sink one about a week ago with the Freedom Fighters."

"Well, it looks like Eggman is dismantling them for scrap," Yanar observed. "We sent in a probe the other day to see if anything new was going on."

"Would that be in _your_ interest, Yanar, and not ours?" Marie-An fostered from beside Lar-Na, her new dress glimmering in the ambient light of the kitchen.

"We...do like to...see things coming," the Ambassador replied sheepishly.

Lar-Na grimaced at Yanar. "Wonderful–" _cough–hmm_...

Stenson lifted his eyes up to his wife, seeing her start to cower at her chest, placing her hand on the black blouse as if to hold in her next round of coughs. Clenched teeth; a shudder of a breath; her voice quivering before her lungs silenced it and violently expelled the air within them. Stenson felt his own tighten with sorrow and aguish while watching his wife fight to breathe between a long stint of coughing.

Marie-An supported Lar-Na more out of concern than helping. "Are you alright, my child?"

"I'_ll_..._cough_...fine." She forced down a shallow gulp of air. "It w_ill_..._ah–hmmm_...pass."

"What time is this gathering," Rob-O asked Yanar, seeing Stenson's gaze leave the two.

Yanar didn't answer right off; he too was studying Stenson's very concerned face. He couldn't help but take note of the pride within the Field Marshal while his depressive expression, and his lingering eyes consumed the honor-bound warrior that stood before them. "In about five hours. We're asking all who are able to come and attend."

His wife began to retch when the latest spell of coughing became violent. Her hand went up to her gaping, gasping lips. She choked. She started to collapse into Marie-An's arms; not his. When her body began to tremble, Stenson listened to the husband in him and not the leader and placed his arm between Rob-O and Yanar. "If you excuse me, Gentlemen. My wife needs me."

The two said nothing as Stenson squeezed by them, gracing the floor to his wife, leaning down and taking her in his arms. At first she was perplexed at the sight of her opened hand as he embraced her, letting his check ride atop her brow. He didn't look down at first, eyeing Yanar who soon approached him.

"Mr. Stenson. I did get an appointment for a doctor before the council's meeting," the Ambassador said somberly. "I did as best I could to get her in early."

He never looked to address Yanar. Instead, he only listened to his words and Lar-Na's wan breathing. Nodding was his answer of acceptance; closing her blue hand to hide the terror that they both saw.

Blood had stained her palm.

* * *

Please tell me what you all think thus far. Hopefully tomorrow I will have another chapter up plus edited versions of the last two. I am very appreactive to my audience and I can't thank you enough to bearing with me on this journey and to keeping me committed to this.

Mauser


	21. The Medicine of Family

* * *

Greetings once more.

I open this chapter on realizing I had a certain character absent, and needed to refresh you all with about her and her ordeal. Tell me how I did with her current state.

But the meet and bones to this chapter involves a character who originally I didn't want to take this far in the story. But my journey with him has been an eye opener in my own mind and my own feelings. Yes, Wesson is an orphan. I do want to touch on his backstory but not here. I don't want it to take away the overall picture of this project and it's main character Aleutian.

Will they meet? Not in the near future. I think I'm going to have Wesson as his own chronicle in this...but yes, I do plan on having them meet. We just have to stay committed for it.

Alas, the story. I am caught up, however, I'm still formulating plans to help bring out sense and not have this hashed together at the end. I, and I'm sure you all, have read too many books were that happens.

So Disclaimer; I own nothing of the original characters and I observe the rights of their creators.

Thanks to Sara for the review. I would love to respond to it personally, however it's there is no way to reach you but here. Thanks a'bunch from the bottom of my heart for the motivation.

Enjoy!

* * *

**The Medicine of Family**

By: Mauser

* * *

Numb.

Even the feeling was numb.

"_Moving...I think I'm moving."_

She couldn't open her eyes; nailed shut from sleep, from pain. It came from her right arm; shooting, tingly. Burning. But the motion of her being pushed as she lay–that she knew she felt– was evident.

Coldness laced her body. Was she clothed, or was she covered? Something thin shielded her from the cold but she never lifted her eyelids to see. She couldn't; didn't offer the will to do so. _"What's...going on?...where is that...squeeaking..coming...from?"_ Her lungs were filled with the cold, damp air. They felt numb too.

The squeaking ceased; so did the forward motion. Still, she didn't open her dry eyes; like the desert they felt.

A shunt...a gate or door. She couldn't really tell.

"_Ehhhhh..."_ she moaned; a response from being pushed forward once more.

A stop again. A moment of silence. Then, groans of motors; a falling sensation. The feeling stopped as soon as it began...she thought. Time was so far out of reach.

The same shuts. The same squeaks. A change in direction; pushing backwards.

"_Where am I?"_ she whispered to herself.

But darkness was her answer.

A sudden stop; a sudden turn to the right...or was it left? Her motivation to seek answers or to even find them was gone with her senses.

All she could do was listen; fading voices, drowning voices coming in and out of her consciousness.

"This subject's iron is lo...blood is below minimum to continue...put her in coma stasis...her brain lives for another eighteen hours till then...the other is brain dead...still giving blo..."

Silence...sleep...

* * *

At a hundred stories up New Robotropolis gave the effect that Snively was still standing on the ground. Increasing his grip around the metal railing helped combat the rolling wind from his perch on the large observation platform, the upper hangar at his back. Straying his pensive stare to the surrounding structures, some wide at the base but tapering at his vantage point inwards while others were thin and short, constructed with and without windows; embodied under steal and iron with hardly any rock, he would barely see the night sky over the yellow light pollution and the clustered buildings all around him. With the black canvas to draw new ideas forth stained in amber he returned to the large skyscraper in front of him, its windows dark, continuous, separated from the stories above and below them by smooth sheets of grey steel. And between Snively and the structure–which he now remembered was a tank factory converted into creating the Delta-Bot which was about to make its pass and review–a long wide berth. Like a canyon but with a river of asphalt at the bottom, provided one could see it through the lingering haze.

And thus he grumbled at his imposing surroundings. Fatigue was winning out over his motivated self. Between the fast paced morning, that saw nothing afterwards of the phantom echidna nor Rob-O, and the boring oversight Eggman had him do, it was a wonder he could keep his eyes open if not from tearing. He wanted to review the latest data from_ his_ project and not his uncle's, but again, fatigue was winning out. Although the latest that he saw was still pleasing, Snively still wanted to study the subjects' vitals so he could still pump their valuable blood to make his new tools become the most efficient and unseen killing machines to date.

Unfortunately, that end of the stick was still untested. Too many variables had to work: the blood to flow through the chasis and armor, if the charging magnetos could sustain the prolonged use the Com-Bot needed to be cloaked. And if the batteries could hold out...He was pretty sure it all could work out, but the doubts kept rolling in. He could never be satisfied unless he saw it cloak first hand. That of which was out of the question. An unscheduled absence would arouse suspicion in his uncle. At this stage, he couldn't afford it.

"_So how to test you out?"_

It came first as a whin, the sound finding its way through the spaces of the skyscrapers. Soon it became a dull roar, making Snivel tilt his head to the left and stare down the open ravine of steal, glass, and iron. When the collision lights of the bot showed through the gathering pollution haze, Snivel could faintly make out the shape of the Delta-winged bot that was quickly approaching. The twin hyper-turbine engines at full yell was deafening when it passed, the canopy-less bot rolled on its wingtip, exposing the two intake scoops under each wing with its empty missile racks, four in all. Snively shook his head at the sight of the paint job Eggman had decided was a form of art: an eye colored the nose where a canopy should have been constructed, if it were meant to house a pilot, the intakes resembling claws, and lines painted over in red resembling feathers. A bird he didn't know what it was supposed to look like, but a bird nonetheless.

Snively kept his heavy, attuned eyes on the rear of the bot, watching the glow of the afterburners fade as the Delta-Bot rolled further on its side and dashed between two buildings when it nosed up for its turn. And when the screaming engines lost texture in the city, a slow series of claps came from behind him.

"Well done!"

Snively turned to see his obese uncle lightly stepping up behind him, impacting his hands once more before letting them sway to his side as if he were marching. His long mustache ruffled in the high attitude winds, his nose blush red and long, eyes beady, and his red, black, and yellow body suite sketched the bald man's name perfectly.

Eggman.

"Another piece to my already grand puzzle completed," he said with immense pride over something so trivial. "With my latest batch of ships to my fleet getting their fuel, I say things are on track. Don't you, Snively?"

Snively moved away from the railing and raised his timid voice to be heard over the wind. "We are still twenty-five percent from being at full strength. That _is_ what you desire?"

Only a nod confirmed the already laid down plan. "Time and patience, Snively. Sinister things come when we have time and patience. The _Rodent_ and his friends will have their just rewards for pestering me."

Snively said nothing, keeping his face even though he took the advice with annoyance but noted it for his own benefit.

"When can we load this new creation?" the large scientists asked.

"Our escort carriers near the Great Plaines can receive their first wings come three days time," Snively answered with a false pride.

Eggman's silent nod was expected. And so was the carefree hand pushing at Snively's back. He droned on about his hate, his loath of a certain blue hedgehog. Then his ramblings of how the refinery work camp wasn't needed. "Terminate them all tomorrow, Snively. My use for them has run its course." he said.

And he heard it over his cringing self. A senseless job to be done with the push of a button. His plans were on a grander scale than his uncle's. He wanted to tell of his own workings, but those workings didn't fare to well for Eggman's health. That was if they were going to work. To test he needed to have a good challenge to fit the overpriced bill to end his Uncle's life. And where else than to test it on his Uncle's enemies.

As he nodded and listened, he smiled inwardly.

"_Keep talking...I'm conspiring."_

* * *

"Hey, watch it!"

Wesson speared through a line of meandering echidna's on the wet sidewalk to cross the street, sprouting the verbal reaction of the man he'd just cut off. All focus of his situational awareness went by the wayside. So much so that when his boots landed in the street he was met by the blaring horn of a sleek, black hover car which almost didn't stop in time. Wesson twisted himself from the jolt to his senses before gracefully turning back around to his impeded direction. He never saw the driver shake his fist in the car. Instead, he kept going, weaving around a stopped truck and leaping over the curb to the other sidewalk.

Pivoting west, the Legionnaire sprang forward. Every limp brought pain. Every passing shop brought on a building relief. Squeezing by the people in Albion's middle district was trifling to his already burdened mind: Echidna men holding umbrellas for their significant others. Echidna mother's using the latest news dispatches as shelter for their babies that rode in their strollers. They were all resistence to his new war. When he came to a busy intersection, he stopped himself for a brief second, gathered where he was, turned right to the north and pressed on. His arms swung by his side, his left brushing past his holstered pistol while his right clenched his mechanical fingers tightly that much resembled his charged, wet face. _"Three blocks,"_ he breathed to himself, passing a building which was lined with limestone columns of ancient architecture, and becoming his landmark.

Passing the first street was an insignificant feat. The second however triggered the stabbing pain of his abdominal muscles cramping. He tried hard to ignore it, hearing the voice of his former sergeants and officers shouting to him it was weakness leaving the body. When he crossed the third street he wondered if the tightening feeling in his throat and his heart was the real weakness. Or were they his drive to bear with the pain and not to let up. He wanted to give into it once he reached the street entrance to the hospital. He wanted to stop and catch his breath when he followed the apex path to the sliding doors of the emergency room. He wanted stop and stare at the sick and injured in the triage lounge. But he didn't act on the temptations.

Riding the elevator up was the only the rest he allowed himself. A nurse and a few doctors rode with him, perplexed at the hard breathing, half-hardwired echidna in their presence. Wesson tried to ignored them by intently focusing on the climbing numbers. And when the bell rang, it was like a starting shot for him to continue, dashing through the door and darting right down the white corridor of the second floor. Stopping at the foot of the door he was met with crushing disappointment once his eyes fell on an empty room.

"_I'm too late!"_

His head shook left then right, looking for someone who possibly had information. He found it as a purple furred echidna nurse, her hands occupied with a metal tray as she was leaving a room. He didn't let her get far when he rushed up to her, breathing hard.

"W–where is Nata-Le." No response when she looked at him, more so at the meaning of his question than his replaced features. "The wounded Centurion," he explained further, his gritty voice wet with emotion.

"Oh...her. Yeah, they moved her up to orthopedics a short time ago, forth floor," she replied kindly. "She's going for her replacement..."

Wesson never let her get finished, scrambling away from her and seeking another elevator. Again, he watched as the numbers climbed. Again he ignored the gawking inhabitants. When the doors sprang open he filed through them, searched out his destination on the directory board on the wall in front of him, and followed the arrow that pointed down the hall to the right. His pace had slowed dramatically, the sounds his boots echoing along the hallway with every slamming step he took. A left turn brought him to a pair of swinging doors. He fell into them, leaning forward as he lumbered along.

Ten yards later he came to a hard breathing stop when he read the words "authorized personnel only" written on the heavy metal doors in front of him. It had become the barrier of his driving feelings of fulfilment, sending guilt to his stomach that churned with a yearning sensation that he couldn't put down. A gapping breath and a stamp of frustration with his heavy boot answered his indifference to his betrayal against his word. And when he took a second breath, he let it out as moan, almost a sob.

Lifting his arms above his head, Wesson turned around to the right but stopped short when his wide eyes glimpsed inside the waiting room that he had failed to see. The glum lighting in the brown-wallpapered room echoed the mix feelings of the couples' eyes that glared at him. They were the only two in the room, sitting in the back row of chairs by a table, on which perched a lone lamp. Wesson studied them a while longer as they studied him in turn: both holding each other by their hands, comforting each other against their worries for whatever they might be. It was here that he turned away, fearing he was intruding on their time of solitude as they waited.

Within two paces, the young Sergeant heard a deep voice come from inside the room.

"Young man?"

He ignored it, letting his eyes fall on the tile floor and tracing...

"Wesson?"

The questioning voice, still deep, however commanding, to the point that Wesson stopped, straightened and did a slow about-face. The male echidna he saw holding the aged woman was now looking at him with confidence in the middle of the passageway. "Are you a Mr. Wesson?"

He didn't respond at first, letting the question plug into his head and formulate the right answer.

"It's Sergeant Wesson, sir, yes," he finally said, vacantly, still breathing deep but mildly.

The two locked eyes with each other passively before the older male spoke. "My Nata-Le has said much about you...is it true you ran her back to us?"

Wesson felt a warm shiver caress his heart when the man smiled after his question. The Legionnaire's natural hand trembled at his side, looking up at the taller echidna in awe at what he was asking. He never said the reply; he only showed it, lifting the left side of his soaked jacket that exposed Nata-Le's stained violet blood. He never could have predicted what he saw next. A lone tear fell from the man's eye and traced down his muzzle which held onto a carefree smile. It was hard to fathom what the meaning of this response was for Wesson. He figured the man was about to break down completely when he glimpsed inside Wesson's jacket at his own daughter's stained blood.

But smile?

"Ames!...Ames, don't leave me here alone!" came the shrilled voice from inside waiting room.

The older echidna turned back to the room then returned his wrinkled eyes back to Wesson. "Come in, son. Please come wait with us."

Wesson looked to the floor and then inwards to himself. "I...I don't need show myself to her mother like this."

Ames frowned somberly as he stepped away from the door and up to the Legionnaire. To Wesson's surprise he took him by his cybernetic hand, studied it briefly before tugging him along with it. The Sergeant had to look up to see if he was getting the message right. Ames wasn't tall for Wesson was short, but the smile from the height that separated them was still belittling. It was enough to lift his boots from their entrenchment on the floor and be lead inside the room.

The mother gasped the instant she finally got a good look at Wesson being towed behind Ames, but her husband lifted his hands for easement. "Car-Le, please. Don't be timid. He means no harm." Ames then clasped his hand over the other on Wesson's arm and brought him closer. "This is who are daughter was asking for and who we should be grateful to have with us right now."

The temper and the fear Wesson once saw went away with a relieved sigh from Car-Le. For a moment there was no expression on her elegant face when it wasn't lashing out for some ill reason, but then it brightened to a disarming smile that made Wesson feel nervous out of not knowing how to accept it.

"So, you are Wesson," she stated graciously.

He lowered his voice down to a whisper, shielding all that could hear him from his raspy, bawd growl. "Sergeant Wesson, ma'am."

Car-Le's face squinted when she didn't hear him quite right. "Come again?"

"Sergeant Wesson, ma'am," he repeated, unfortunately returning back to his gritty, raspy voice.

"Well..." Car-Le swallowed before continuing on; Wesson had a feeling why, "well, come sit with us," she finished, laying her hand down by the chair next to her.

Taking it, with Ames sitting beside him, Wesson didn't turn his head or adjust himself to converse. Instead, he reverted back to his bearing; eyes forward, blank; hands on his lap, and his knees and feet closed in.

When Car-Le spoke after a long, deafening silence, her voice was shaking that made Wesson wonder if he should've declined the invitation. "W–what happened to your voice. You haven't gotten sick from being out in the rain. Look at you...your soaked head to toe."

Wesson's cybernetic irus fidgeted to Car-Le before finding its spot back on the far wall. "I...I had my throat cut about four months ago."

Ames responded before his wife could gasp. "Dear Aurora, son. Is that the story for the rest of you?"

A timid, nervous nod was the response.

"Where do you come from?" Car-Le asked after gaining her composure. "I don't remember seeing someone like you around here."

"I'm not from around here," Wesson said evenly. "My home is on Angel Island with the Legion."

"Ahh...that answers some things," Ames stated in a mocking wonder. "Is this Legion a resistence movement? We've heard much about the occupation on the Island."

A curt shake of the head and a fast conclusion that he wasn't going to explain who he calls his superiors. "In a way it is, sir, but I really don't want to...um...frighten your wife about things–"

"It's understandable, son. Maybe over dinner or a drink you can explain. You are old enough to drink, aren't you?"

"I'm only seventeen, sir," came Wesson's sighing reply, his ears ringing from the way Ames kept addressing him as.

"Dear Aurora. From the looks of you, my boy, I'd say you can forgo the age limits. Looks like you deserve it."

Car-Le laid her hand on Wesson's robotic arm, studying it some. "Is this what my Nata-Le is getting?" she asked, the temptation to cry was evident.

"Um...Ye--"

"Oh, come Car-Le. Don't burden the boy," said Ames, his stare reaching over to his wife. "Can't you see he's all shook up as it is."

"It's not that, sir," Wesson replied softly.

"I'm sorry, Wesson. I didn't mean..."

Car-Le voice trailed when she noticed Wesson's eyes wandering down to her and Ames' hands on his arms, observing further that he was uncomfortable about it.

"We're not making you feel bad, are we..." She saw a tear come down the other side of his face. "What's wrong, dear?"

Wesson couldn't explain it right then. The warm touches he felt, even through the simulated nerves of his right arm, somehow unearthed repressed memories of warming smiles, caring hands, and gentle voices. Those voices reverberated loudly in his ears without the true form of who spoke them being present. He fought to picture them, he knew who they were after hearing them. _"Son,"_ said a firm but kind voice. He repeated the voice over and over in his head, hoping it would spark a picture.

But none came; and for his fruitless efforts he broke down.

He felt the gentle squeeze, saw it came from Ames.

"Son, what are you crying about...we haven't hurt you, have we? You are our hero...we can't hurt our hero."

Wesson rolled his hand into a frustrated fist. "_Son_...you keep calling me _son_," he sobbingly fought to say. "I...I haven't heard that being called to me in a long time."

Ames and Car-Le eyed each other as if they had ended someone's world.

"I can't remember their faces," Wesson hammered under his crying whisper. "I can't remember my parents. I can only hear them."

"You're without family?" Car-Le asked in sympathy.

His mouth quivered, forcing him to lay silent but he nodded his head in reply.

"Well, Wesson," said Ames, his deep voice growing soft, "you have a family in us. It's for you for the taking. You deserve it for what you did for us. It's all I can offer you for saving our only treasure."

He kept his chin at his chest, saying nothing but seemly taking in Ames words as a breath of free air. And soon after, Ames and Car-Le listened to Wesson's crying die when he was overcome by sleep. An hour passed with silence, Ames supporting the sleeping Legionnaire over his shoulder, never letting his hand go, until a brown echidna with a white coat labeling him as a doctor came marching in while taking off his surgical mask. Ames was the first to stand with Car-Le waking Wesson, who jolted right to life to her surprise, and helped him stand to his feet.

"She's doing fine," said the surgeon. "The nerve stimulates are keeping her asleep and we are running the beginning diagnostics of her arm now. The nerve attachment went along very smooth. No real damage that we can see and nothing beyond repair after a few weeks of physical therapy."

"What about infection? Are you using hydraulic actuators?" Wesson asked hastily.

"Hydraulics? No, we haven't used those in awhile," the doctor answered flatly. "So, no infection will come of it. We use flex joints."

Wesson nodded, casting his sight at Ames and Car-Le.

"You worry too much, son," Ames observed with a light smile.

"Why I've stayed alive so long," Wesson replied in earnest.

"Can we see her, Doctor?" Car-Le asked eagerly.

The brown echidna pinched his lips and nodded. "Yes. Please follow me."

* * *

I hope you have all enjoyed this chapter and of course the next.

Eggman/Dr. Robotnick, to me, is one character from the other stories I have read on here that has never been described but by a few authors. Red Mage 04 did it great with "Ghost from the Past." But I have also seen Snively taken a backseat in many other's, so he is the main villian in this instead of the Fat-Dude! To me, Snively is the far more danger than Eggman in the comics. Hey, he was the killed the first Robotnick in Sonic #50.


	22. Ultimatum of a Warrior

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Wow...two chapters in one day. This should keep you all busy for awhile.

I had to go hunting for this one. For me to get the Albion council, I had to call on some friends to give me descritpitions and scans of comics, and thankfully it worked.

Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights to the original creators of the original characters.

Check back for "Nocturne Conversations" and "Liberators from Knothole" for edited versions.**  
**

* * *

**Ultimatum of a Warrior**

By: Mauser

* * *

"Where's Wesson, Ell-Tee?" Stenson said in a pitched growl, rounding left from one frieze hall into another. Painted portraits lined the walls of what he considered were the Albionian's idea of great Echidna's of the past. Even a few pure white marble statues martyred noble greats who held pencils, books, and some with the tombs of Aurora and the Ancient Walkers. Passing one portrait of a red echidna, quite old in age, Stenson gave it quick glance and wondered if they wouldn't mind putting one up of Dimitri in the same reverent manner_. "The former Grand Marshal would be a fitting addition to the collection," _he thought proudly.

"I couldn't find him, Field Marshal," Ell-Tee said after he quickened his march to keep up with Stenson. "I checked the hospital where she was suppose to be, but I couldn't find her or him."

A grumbling sigh. "Just great!"

"He deserves to be AWOL, _Stenson_. Just let it go," Lar-Na defended with a sneer.

The Field Marshal halted dead and did a quick about face, holding his index finger up as if it were a baton. "I wanted everyone present and accounted for to be here for Rob-O in strength!"

Lar-Na's gentle hand graced his tightened face, cooling his angered thoughts. "You have Vickers, you have Ell-Tee, and you most importantly have _me_. We will be at your side during this battle of wits with the unarmed. Numbers mean nothing. Use that mind you have and be the cunning diplomat you have been portraying since we landed here."

Stenson took her hand softly, bowed his eyes followed by his head and kissed her on the cheek. "There are days, Lar-Na, you should hold my rank and not I."

Squeezing his hand and clasping it with the other, she said, "And there are days, my love, that I wish you never had it. I have shared your burden every step of the way, and I have grown tired with it, such as I see it in you."

"I have never wished this upon you, Lar-Na," Stenson gloomily whispered. "Why tell me now?"

"Don't trouble yourself with it, Stenson. I've shared the same bed with you over the wonderful years, and I willingly shared the same pain you inflict upon yourself. It's how a good wife rewards her loving and caring husband. When I stop is when you stop."

Stenson looked on into her eyes, feeling her stare reenforce his convictions of the next battle ahead. "On to victory, my Mistress," he stated firmly.

A stiffened back, a crisp about face to the open forum ahead, and a rigid left foot out, Stenson continued the march, his dark cloak gliding behind his cadenced feet. Lar-Na, Vickers and Ell-Tee keeping in step close behind in a scattered formation. Echidna's littered the lavish hall, holding debating discourses seemly to burst the long passage way with sound. Some stopped in mid-converse when the Legionnaires strode by, focused on the blank impassiveness in their demeanor with their shoulders riding high with resolve and pride. Ell-Tee had his black robe on, along with Corporal Vickers, but by request of their Field Marshal, no hoods. Lar-Na's firm figure was traced by her black blouse and matching slacks. Her blue fur groomed to shine in the broken light of the dreary day through the pane windows up high.

Open wooden doors, walnut in stain, offered entrance into the rotunda. Upon the foot of the passageway Stenson was stopped by a grey beared echidna, dressed in grey and blue robes that lingered around his feet, and with a firm, raised palm. "Wait here, sir, for your announcement to the Council. Please, your name and party of which to be announced as, sir?"

"Field Marshal Stenson, I'm here as an envoy to The Legion," Stenson offered with honor.

"The _Dark_ Legion," trumped Lar-Na from beside him, "let them know we aren't a ray of sunshine to the weak."

A guileful smile stretched across Stenson's lips which followed an assuring nod to the foreperson. "What she said, sir."

Turning after regaining his respective thoughts of tranquillity, the foreperson stepped through the archway, inhaled deeply and forced his voice to be heard over the roaring chatter in the rotunda.

"Councilor's of Albion...I present Field Marshal Stenson of the Dark Legion and his accompanied retinue!"

With his bearing locked down, Stenson marched his way through the doors. It seemed as if his scared leather boots were the murderer of sound. A step brought hushed silence inside the wide annular; a second step commanded bewildered, pondering stares to fall from the highest levels of benched seats. The rotunda was an extension to an already commodious building. It housed what Stenson had gathered the bulk of the ruling representatives and government of Albion. Outside it was tall and white, like the name of the city itself, but inside, as he toured the dome, colored in variety. But the rotunda had an abundance of colors that would leave a painter belittled of his own knowledge. The dome was panned in stained-glass, five praying figures of echidna's kneeling around the center piece in reverence, their features splintered in the peaking sunlight from the pregnant rain clouds.

At the far end of the forum was the council, their post behind a stretching, mahogany bench lined with silk white drapes to either side. And from the middle stood Gala-Na, her yellow robe lingering steady around her torso.

"The Council offers their humble welcome to the Dark Legion to this forum."

A female pink echidna with long hair that mixed with her dreads pressed forward to Stenson. "Please sir, follow me to your seats."

Relief came when words were spoken that filled the court, letting Stenson feel somewhat better, however still on edge to get things moving. Following the girl around to the right side of the forum and up six aisles of benches before she extended her arm out to a row that was partially empty., Stenson took his seat by a purple male echidna, who shifted away from him out of respect for personal space. Lar-Na took his side with Ell-Tee sitting next to her followed by Vickers.

The Corporal looked around at the gathered. Five hundred he guessed by the numbers he saw, their gender and fur colors decoratively mixed. Leaning his head over, he spoke into Ell-Tee's ear:

"What 'sup with the Sergeant, Ell-Tee."

The long dreaded Legionnaire's response came in one breath. "The birds and the damn bees, _Corporal_! Don't concern yourself with him right now. Look sharp and on spot."

Stenson leaned an eye out at Ell-Tee before letting it trace back to his wife. "You see Rob-O and Marie-An among us?" he asked evenly in her ear, wandering his sight around the radius of the forum.

A searching moment passed when she spotted them. "Three-o'clock low."

Stenson followed her directive eyes down four rows and close to the Council itself. He chuckled upon seeing Rob-O had his bow and quiver at his and Marie-An's feet. Dirk didn't look too fond of his surroundings, his hands clasped between his spread open legs, his back hunched forward.

A pounding gavel rang inside the dome, bringing order and silence in an instant which surprised Stenson.

"We are here for this emergency session today on behalf of our neighbors to the Mainland," Gal-Na announced, her high voice echoing through out the chamber. "But first, our formalities to our people and guest."

The formalities happened to be an expensive way of saying role-call. What was more expensive was the time it was taking to get it done. Districts announced their presence with their representative affirming he or she was present with them on the council chair.

Taking the time while still observing the proceedings, Ell-Tee leaned to Lar-Na. "How was the doctor's visit?" he asked.

A light laugh came for the response. "She gave me a lollipop for being a good girl."

"Did she really?" Ell-Tee returned idly.

"It was _strawberry_, Ell-Tee," she replied gingerly.

He chuckled. "So, all seriousness, Mistress, what did she find out?"

"Well, Doctor Trish-Ha–that was her name right, Stenson?"

The Field Marshal nodded over his pensive stare at the five members of the Council. "Yes, very nice. Very good on her examination."

"She was very thorough, Ell-Tee. Had the stethoscope in all the right places."

"Well, what did she hear?" Vickers interrupted inquisitively.

"Crackles. She said she was worried about it and had me down for X-ray's soon after. Why were a little behind. She's reviewing the examination; said it was going to take her sometime."

Ell-Tee patted her hand in assurance. "Don't let this little soiree keep you from finding out what the heck is wrong with you."

"And you care, Ell-Tee?" Lar-Na put in.

"I care for my Field Marshal's purpose to go home alive and seeing victory on the battlefield. We care for _you_, ma'am, as much as we care for the guy next to us." On that note he took a mocking side glance at Vickers and returned his eyes to Lar-Na. "Well...maybe just me."

Vickers retorted with a grumble under his breath.

"ALL IS HERE!" relayed the foreperson from the middle of the floor. His slow, spirited voice silenced Ell-Tee and Lar-Na, throwing their attention to Gal-Na, who stood.

"My wonderful citizens of Albion," she proclaimed elegantly, her hands clasped in front of her chest, "our gathering on this grey day, and away from your activities happens to be of great importance. We welcome to this emergency forum our friends and Sentry to the East. Please, Rob-O, Marie-An and Dirk, arise so we can see you."

Eyes fell to the standing, but yet somehow proud resistence fighters even when their fight was falling apart at the seams. The rippling shifts of light from the glass dome was fitting to their embolden demeanor.

"_Why does it come to this in the most urgent of times," _Stenson observed from his leaning position. Lar-Na snuggled at his hand with her's as if to hold him back...for the moment.

Yanar stood up from a booth holding seven other dignitaries in all, centered to the right of the council and facing towards Stenson. All wore the robes he had come to expect, except one sitting to the far right. The brown echidna had the blue uniform of the Albion Centurions, decorated with the traces of gleaming metals in the raking sunlight, but hardly anything else. It was quite far to see, even to squint.

"Councilors of Albion," the Ambassador announced as he stepped down from the oak-stained booth and took center on the grand marble floor, "as solemn duty that you have bestowed on me, I ask of you to hear out our friends and Sentry to the East and listen to them well, for their trials that they have endured–and _I _have seen–I assure are things to possibly come if we are not careful."

A male echidna sitting beside Gala-Na spoke, light blue in fur and greying around his brows, beard and natural coat. "That is for us to ascertain, _Ambassador_," he said in a throaty, shrewd voice.

Grumbles echoed around the chamber, Stenson's own following. "_Ascertain_."

"Easy, _dear_," Lar-Na cooed, but still firm in tone.

Two beats of a gavel drowned out the murmuring voices. Gala-Na looked to the echidna beside her. "We are here to listen, Councilor. At least hold an open ear out before succumbing to a conclusion." Placing her hands in front of her, she revealed a disarming smile toward the Mercians. "Rob-O, please. You _now_ have our attention."

The way she said it; gallant with sincerity, added with the most fluent of nods, sent Stenson's apathetic thoughts to the rearmost of his mind, and put his attention to the wind.

And thus, Rob-O the Hedgehog addressed the people who he seemed divined to protect.

"People of Albion...Council of Albion. I have risked my spines, my wife, and my best fighter, who has a family as well, to come and ask of two questions...two simple questions. Why and why now?"–questioning gazes met others beside them, then cast back to the hooded hedgehog. "I know of your technology! I know of your watchful eyes around me!" Rob-O paused to let his hurt, pitched voice fill the rotunda. "But how could you do nothing? How could you do this to me–to my people–a _second time _while I protect your boarders?...While I let you sleep in peace at night in your warm beds."

"And we thank you for it, Rob-O," stated a feminine red echidna at the far left end of the council's bench. Her robes were yellow as well, but her long locks were fashioned with white ribbons, holding her most outer locks together behind the rest. "I, Gala-Na, and Mykol view your actions and resistence with commendable eyes for keeping our land safe."

"But why haven't you come and aided us, Rita-Li?" Rob-O pleaded. "Why do I have to make my third journey here to ask for help? Why does it have to be this way?"

The council laid silent, each member looking to come up with an answer, hoping it wouldn't offend and cause more harm to Rob-O. The still voices were doing it already for him.

"Yesterday I met an ally," Rob continued on, rounding a presenting arm toward the sitting Dark Legion's direction. "Yesterday this ally I've never heard of, and whom I almost killed for they looked like the machines who dominate my lands, showed more strength to come to my land to see how much suffering we have been living with. Who actually care for our well being! From the looks of it, they're taking a holiday from their war, and then taking another holiday from their's to fight _my_ war. Can you see what you have done? I have no way to repay them for their kind deeds from last night, nor can I repay them for helping me and my _Crazy Critters _for getting me to speak to _you_."

"You could have come anytime for us to hear your plight, Rob-O," Gal-Na said in her calm tone.

"And then what...wait to hear you deny my plea for help? How many more slaps does my wife need to send out as messages to get it through to you?"

Gasps and foul and surprised looks lathered the court. It was as if Rob-O had spoken of blasphemy in the holiest of shrines. Adding insult to injury, the aqua hedgehog squirmed a satisfied smirk across his mug at the council itself, then paraded it around the rotunda for all others to see his barbed look. The council laid impassive to it, and it seemed to his words, but the citizens passed their shocked thoughts around in murmurs and snippet quips.

A male echidna, one who looked to be the most intrigued of the five councilors, leaned forward in his chair. His brown fur was groomed well enough to glow in the passing sunlight, dark hair in a wavy comb, and his robs a darker shade of yellow and purple than the others. "I have observed and pleaded to my fellow members on behalf of your trails and tribulations, Rob-O,"–a slow turn of the head brought his uncouth expression to the other four, "but when your troubles do come up, we _seem_ to be more concerned about is how close you have lead the machines to our doorstep. Tell me, Sentry, can you dispel the notion that you are not intentionally bringing them this close so that we _have_ to fight them when they breach our shield?"

A deep breath and a determined, sincere look washed over Rob-O's face. "No, I am not."

Councilor Mykol responded next, his tone demanding. "Then why have you brought them this close?"

"Because we are losing and are falling back to the safest of lands we can find! It won't be long till we are cast into the sea!"

* * *

"Does he speak the truth, Wesson?"

The Sergeant didn't register Ames' inquiry at first. His attention was torn between the sleeping girl by his side, wrapped in white sheets to keep her warm on the bed, and the wall T.V. that was projecting Rob-O's dire expression to the four in the recovery room. It was when he saw Car-Le lean forward to him out of the corner of his eye that he realized he was being talked to.

"Say again, sir," he said wearily.

"Does he speak the truth, Wesson?" Ames repeated. "Is it that bad on the mainland."

A shifting nod in Ames' direction, arms clinched tightly across his chest to keep warm. "We busted up a...logistics marshaling zone that held some of his people. I'm not sure where they were going to take them, but I know where they go isn't good. His wife, I think, was with them."

"And you freed them?" Car-Le inquired softly.

"Yes, ma'am, and so did Nata-Le, Craig and Oscar," Wesson replied, his gritty voice even, not filled with triumph which surprised Ames some.

"You seem not to be phased by it," Ames observed.

Wesson took in a deep breath, readying himself to open up to his inner-feelings. "I've been doing this so long, sir, it takes a lot now to get to me. Today though, I got scared."

"Really?" came the soft, concerned reply.

"Yeah...we got real close to getting spotted. Rob-O returned the favor and saved us, though."

"Just so he can plead to us for help?" Car-Le faltered.

Wesson let her question go, deciding it was best to be answered indirectly. "It got close."

* * *

From the time it took the council to rally themselves to their questions and when the dull roar of the citizens died, Field Marshal Stenson had sized the battlefield of voices and words to a tactical sense of things. The conclusion; it wasn't faring too well for Rob-O. Gala-Na seemed to be a puppet in certain lights and the ventriloquists so happened to be the people left and right of her, plus the citizens who either had elected her, or maybe the case that she elected herself. He was already disliking Mykol; he was shrewd and set in his convictions that would lead his people to certain defeat and enslavement. Rita-Li reflected naivety but Stenson gathered there was something more under her fur that said guts after adding water. One who seemed not to have any at all, just by her mere silence throughout the whole proceeding, was a female echidna, old in her years and possibly elected just because of it. Her thinning grey hair said senile in her complection and that was what Stenson had gathered about her, making her dangerous just for making uninformed, or worse, arrogant decisions. In the grand summary of them; they looked and acted no more than the religious council back on Angel Island...just with a lot less resolve.

However he saw some hope, and that hope was currently speaking to Rob-O.

"...My district falls on the path to our city, and I have supported countless arguments to put regular defenses and so far it has been done, but minimal from what I have seen. You must understand, Sentry, that our people live in a world of peace, and when one of us brings about words of defense and fortified positions, many of us cower to our safety net, and from what you have spoken, it has become frayed with cuts from the outside."

"But then you have heard my pleas, listened to my report of the bots that searched for me. What happens when they search and they find us here? Then what?" said Rob-O.

"Our Centurions can protect us and throw an assault back out of our City of White," retorted Mykol, his indifferent stare beaming to the blue uniformed Echidna in the adjacent booth.

Vickers only witnessed the nod which spewed his mocking remark that only could be heard by his superiors beside him. "Yeah, right!"

"Corporal..."

Ell-Tee's voice was overlapped by Rob-O's.

"I would put your Centurions to the test any day. And if I may say so, they failed last night."

"Failed?" festered Mykol. "I'd say they did pretty good for the numbers they had and the ill training in the barbaric ways of the offense."

"A girl was wounded in the easiest of ambushes. With the superior weaponry you have over us, it should have never happened."

"It should have never happened to begin with. Our Centurions are not to leave the safety of the shield unless with a deliberated consensus with the council, for which none was held." Mykol eyes left Rob-O's and searched out Yanar's. "Our Ambassador to the outside world has took it upon himself to start his own war." A glance to his left visibly grabbed Gala-Na's eyes in fright of a scolded kid. "Councilor Gala-Na, did you authorize this little 'hunting party' to go out?"

"I did not, councilor Mykol," she answered defensively.

"Then our wounded keeper of the peace, which has quite possibly alienated her from her friends and family just on the count of losing her arm–praise Aurora not her life–falls on the shoulders of Ambassador Yanar."

The male Councilor on the far right rose to Yanar's defense. "Don't go off blaming about hollow things on people who only mean to do good!"

Again, the court filled to the brink with disarranged voices before the councilmen's counter could be heard. This time, the council itself joined in the fracas until Gala-Na let her gavel slam out the call to order. When the chamber became quiet at last, she spoke in her calm, diplomatic way.

"Rob-O, we understand what you have been going through–"

"Oh, really? Thou's people haven't begun to see the surface of my suffering and pain because I can't protect my own people, much less yours," came the hedgehog's snide retort.

"We are willing to look into the matter now that it is really at our attention, Rob-O but we have to hear our own people and their synapsis if we have the strength and material to help you without causing our downfall." Gala-Na rested her eyes to the long desk in search of her next train of thoughts before leveling her eyes back to Rob-O. "We have to have a consensus, Rob-O. You must give us time so when we make our decision, it will benefit all."

"I don't have time for deliberations, Gala-Na!" Rob-O scoffed, infuriated. "I barely had time for this circus!"

"It's all we ask right now, Rob-O–"

"And I say make a snap decision for once in your pathetic lives and take it as it comes!"

Gasping and searing stares focused to the upper left of the rotunda. Lar-Na never looked, even when the corner of her eyes witnessed the black sheet of her husband standing and thundering his voice to the ears of the court. In turn she smiled inwardly, keeping her dark, cool self present on the outside. And as if it was drilled into them, Ell-Tee and Vickers let there faces glow rigid in expression, becoming hard to read for some, but ominous to a lot of others.

Stenson stood for only a few moments at a honor filled attention before taking the first steps to climb down the rows of benches to the marble floor, caring not if he pushed anyone out of his way.

Mykol eyes glistened with a silent rage which followed Stenson through his journey to the open floor. "Taking it as it comes without the proper planning, sir, is suicide."

"And you are shooting yourselves now just by your inactions to aid your allies," came Stenson's firm response.

"Field Marshal Stenson," announced Gala-Na, "please wait till we call you to address your concerns–"

"Council Women, I like Rob-O have no time to wait for a group of pacifists to make the known decision to go to war, or at least conduct any type of action that is militarily effective."

Touching down on the floor, Stenson marched his way to the side of Rob-O, towering over him as if he were a black shield to protect against angered gods and goddesses. When the silent gazes of the council and the whole court were solidly upon him, he reverted to his commanding voice that many Dark Legionnaires have known to respect and fear in the same breath, and energized it with a deep breath.

"You are the worst example of a governmental body I have ever laid eyes upon. Asking the one who protects you to wait as youmake a decision to go to war...You are already _at_ war. Are you so blinded by your shield that you can't see this. As soon as you are found, there is no stopping Eggman and his machines." Turning away from the council, he spoke his next string of truth to the people of Albion itself. "I know this...for my home is under his collective thumb and strengthened with the Dingoes."

"And what have you done to repeal them, Field Marshal," asked the councilman to the far right.

Stenson shifted around to the council, letting his cloak waft behind him without his resistence. "Force on force and as much of it as we can manage. You see, we don't have the privilege of having a capital we can call home, a well supplied military, and most important, supplies to keep our citizens fed and sheltered. You are abundant with what I so wish to have. And you have the means to carry out operations just by the mere shadow you have yourself surrounded by."

"But if we do anything of that nature...if we leave the shield continuously, we could lead them right to here," put in the elder of the three councilwomen.

Mykol was quick to put in his reasoning. "And you could have brought them here just because you wanted to fight someone else's war. What if Eggman followed you here, discovered people disappearing into the sea? What then, Field Marshal?"

"I would have taken control of the situation–"

"Oh...and you to instigate a coup' to take control of our Centurions to fight. Tell me, Field Marshal, do you practice anything resembling a chain-of-command in your _Legion_?"

Stenson held his tongue, admiring Mykol's blustering tongue in the same time frame and considered if he should threaten him and the gathered citizens of Albion. But he digressed on that idea. Over the years, wars, and experience that came from them, Field Marshal Stenson of the Dark Legion, promoted through the ranks with blood and diligently mixed with his own blood, never gave the notion of _threatening_ people nor enemies. The concept he held strayed back to his early training and thus how the Legion now trains their troopers. You don't unholster your pistol unless you intend to use it; never brandish. If you hold a rifle, you never hold it in an aggressive manner. A tactical rest, diagonal across your chest, finger off the trigger unless you _will_ use it.

And thus the weapon he had in his head, one of great terror to the people of naivety, was sitting at his fingertips. To speak to use it was his quiz. When he side glanced at Rob-O and then to his wife Marie-An and Dirt, their faces fiery in a lonely light, his test was an open book. And so he unsnapped his holster, his voice chambering in a deep tone, filled it with an ominous mirth but seemingly serious all the same.

"I do have a chain of command and be warned I'm not at the height of it."

The feed back was expected; blank but listening. Placing both hands behind at the small of his back, he brushed his cloak around in the same movement, paced stealthily in a small ring, kept his eyes to the council, and continued. "I understand...that you cultivated the option to kill the Guardian Knuckles?"–loud _oohs_ in snide tones filled the air; the council emotionless and staring hard at Stenson. "Well, I have planned two operations to kill him twice, and the rest of the Guardians once. And in a way, I did put my physical hands in the doings. Once we had tried to put ourselves in power in a legal way when in fact it wasn't. In doing, we needed to kill the Guardians for our rise to power to be a success. And in doing, we had to turn a coucil-member in Echidnolopis into a machine for our bidding. He's dead now because of it. And do we care?" Stenson squinted his right eye as if was musing before he answered his own question...never flexing his voice to show remorse. "No.

"My second operation and plan was to put a well placed plasma bolt to his head along with his equal, Julie-Su. Needless to say that didn't workout either."

"And how did you view the Guardian Knuckles to be dangerous?" Gala-Na asked, her elbows anchored to the bench, her hands supporting her chin.

"Only that he could stop us in our pursuit for technocracy and to free the people of Angel Island from the Stone-age."

"So you were out to kill him to–"

"To get him out of the way and settle a long standing feud that reins in one family," Stenson finished dryly.

And with that, he snapped around to the booth holding Yanar and the other Echidna's that held importance to Albion, and there he leveled his knifed hand at the Centurion. "You...you look to be the commander of your all's beloved Centurions. What is your rally cry?"

Without a moments hesitation, the Centurion stood-up with pride. "To keep the peace and protect our humbled city!"

Stenson looked to him in bemused inquire. "Is that all?...It makes me feel all warm inside, much less instill the fear of death in me." He turned to the rear, looked to his wife, Ell-Tee, and Corporal Vickers with selfless honor and shouted loudly so the rotunda could echo his voice. "LEGION!"

The three in black stood immediately to a strict attention. "HAIL DIMITRI! HAIL TO THE GRAND MARSHAL! LET NOTHING RESIST US!"

Turning to the council, Stenson cocked his head ever so slightly, and let his voice become demented to a small degree. "Our cry can tremble the simplest of mindless bots, while yours' can only make me laugh.

"But back to your original question councilman Mykol," Stenson said, his body and voice becoming stern. "I do have a chain-of-command, and like I said before, I am not at the height of it. In a way I have promised Gala-Na that I wouldn't let Albion be known to my superiors, and I do plan to keep my word unless this injustice still stands by the time I part for the open waters and venture back home–"

"Sir, we ask for no trouble," came Gala-Na hastily.

"Oh...Councilwoman, it is not up to me on that angle, but more up to Kommissar. You see, when I return back to Angel Island, I will no longer be the superior Legionnaire, but in fact I will be under command of a very ill-tempered woman who doesn't care if she kills or not to get her way. There are few of us in small, sulking circles that suspect she and her brother killed their father and step-mother so they could regain power back to kill the Guardians and cease the pacifism my former Grand Marshal was starting to preach..." Letting his voice deliberately trail, he took in a steady breath and twisted his face in a look showing that he was perplexed. "And all I have to do is let my moral turpitude that my former Grand Marshal had birthed in me, to diminish to the full ways of the Dark Legion and let slip my travels to Albion."

"FIELD MARSHAL STENSON!" Gala-Na festered abruptly, calling on her legs and arms to propel her up to the dome.

He ignored it and pursued on with the coming ultimatum. "And there is a possibility that I may return, not with refugees that I so wish for you and Rob-O to protect, but with a full regiment–if we can muster one–of Dark Legionnaires and me returning as a subordinate, and Lien-Da in full command and full reign to do as she so wishes. You see, Lien-Da is very cunning and has a fetish for violence. One that even my wife cannot compete with."

A curt silence lingered in the air, the council studying Stenson; Stenson doing likewise.

"And so the choice I present to you. Do you dispose of you inaction-ways and give aid and comfort to your beaten neighbors to the East?...Or do you neglect in your decision to help and I come back and force you to with the promise of enslavement. You have a well motivated force--I respect their pride they seem to hold--and your technology you have created and possess can easily gain a foothold on the mainland."

"But Field Marshal Stenson," offered Rita-Li. "I must profess but even if we do decide to take strong action against Eggman and his machines, Chief Gammon will concur with me that our Centurions cannot conduct such offensive action and be successful."

"I promise you, Council of Albion that when I do return with more of my suffering people, I will be back to help train your Centurions just as this Councilman here has proposed."

"And of us, Stenson?" quipped Rob-O.

The Field Marshal glanced to the aqua hedgehog with a comforting nod. "Either way how they decide, I will be back to help you...on my own if I have to while I am here. I'll even bring logistics to help you."

"And thus, you won't care for us?" quizzed Mykol.

"It won't be me who will be _caring_ for you."

Gala-Na let out an audible sigh that called for calmness and silence to the floor. "We will convene with your thoughts, Field Marshal. Our collective heads will reach a decision before you–"

"Ma'am, you owe it to Rob-O and your people to make it now! In fact, why don't you let your people voice the decision themselves?"

"Because we are a democracy, Mr. Stenson," replied the Councilman to the right.

"Democracy?...You are more like a representive body and the people who elected you are at your mercy. If you say you are a democracy, then let the mob vote; let them make the choice." And on that, Stenson cut a ring in the floor and letting his eyes and head flow over the gathered Echidna's of Albion. "I think it is fitting that the subjects choose their route. After all, it is the council, _now_, deciding weather you will live free, or die and become enslaved by my Brethren. Your wonderful Centurions. I'm sad to say they will all perish if I came back and Kommissar is the one commanding me."

Voices, trembled in one aspect while others were engrossed with fear, wreaked the open fora. Upon hearing this, Stenson twisted a smile, one resembling victory but the factor was still far removed. "It seems fear has drawn the pessimism out. I hope you all are listening to your peoples concerns..."

* * *

Her weak breath of air called Wesson's eyes to her still body. Nata-Le was awakening from the hypnotic sojourn of her life. A succeeding breath muted all sound from his ears, drowning out the dull roar of the television. He started evenly, thinking vacant thoughts that he wished had meaning, watching her chest rise and fall under the white sheet, and tracing the oxygen cord up to her nostrils.

And why? Why did he stare at her while Nata-Le's parents had more right to watch over her with concerned eye?

"_Why do I fear for you..."_

With his natural voice trailing, one he only hears in his mind and not through his vocal chords, the fear he felt and the questions he let plague his mind answered themselves over the pain of his physical well-being and that of his emotional.

He felt concerned. One filled with fear for her which, even with this realization, he still couldn't reason why he felt it, and now all at once.

The sound of Gala-Na's gavel was like a crude knock that overpowered an everlasting daydream. Wesson stiffened his folded arms and fixed his gaze back to the television. The camera had Stenson centered in the frame, Rob-O only visible behind him and not by much. Wesson held his breath as he could tell Stenson was holding his as he stood erect like a steal column. He'd seen this before with him, awaiting orders or a suggestion from either other leaders of the Legion, or Kommissar herself. Wesson could pick out the apprehension in the Field Marshal just by seeing the light stammer of his lips. And with it, his fear was emboldened.

The Field Marshal never plays with threats...what he says is his word.

"Field Marshal Stenson, Rob-O the Hedge; our indebted Sentry." It was Gala-Na's voice, Wesson guessing right as the camera panned to her. "As you say, the both of you have little time for deliberation from us. From you valiant words, I concur with this. But I am only one of five who does hold the life of our people and from what I have listened, those beyond our boarders.

"Councilman Mykol, what say you?"

The camera shifted sightly and zoomed in. Mykol was visibly shaken, however one had to look hard enough to see it. His pause was ensued by a glance to the papers on the desk, and then to Stenson and Rob-O before he spoke.

"Field Marshal of the Dark Legion, if we agree to help, _will_ you comeback as you said, and help?"

A change of camera from the other side of the chamber brought Stenson's left side into view. "My experience with the best laid plans falling apart and going to waste beckons me to give no promise. But I will give my total _all_ to comeback and bring what is needed to support the defense and subsequent offensive operations to the mainland and of your boarders."

"Then with my reluctancy and fear that all we are doing is putting ourselves in mortal danger, I side with Rob-O to aid," proclaimed Mykol, with that reluctancy ever present in his voice.

A nod from Gala-Na and a shift of her head to the left. "Deni-Se, what say you?" she asked the older Echidna female.

"I'm with Councilor Mykol, but I do proclaim my protest of the handling of Field Marshal Stenson and giving us his bold ultimatum to strong-arm our ways and culture to do something we are not fit for, nor have we proceeded down to this low point to do. I hope your bold and daring threats satisfies you, for they haven't satisfied me, Field Marshal."

"I'm not here for popularity, ma'am. Where I see fit for my _promises_ and not my threats is for those who have been burdened with oppression and the fear of death to have a glimmer of hope from those who can help the most. Councilor, mark my words..._Who Dares, wins_.'"

One snap close up of Deni-Se's indifferent posture was suddenly switched to Gala-Na's impassive face. "Councilor Patrick, what say you?"

The Echidna from the far right stood up, steading himself over his fisted knuckles on the bench in front of him.

"I express no malice in my decision but, except, for those who express it for their own. I am a firm believer that we should have done something from the beginning of this vast atrocity, and I am sickened that it took an ultimatum of this magnitude to _scare_ us straight."–a quick breath lowed the venom in his voice. "I stand with Rob-O and the Field Marshal. Please sir, return to us and give your knowledge of combat to us."

Stenson bowed his head as the councilor took his seat. It was now up to the last Councilor now, Wesson taking a side glance at Car-Le and Ames. They stood beside him, the faces mixed with quizzical looks and heightened anxiety at the television.

"Councilor Rita-Li, what say you?"

The camera panned to the left, focusing on the elegant red echidna woman at the end of the bench.

"We have no choice in the matter. The only route that I see is the safest way is to aid Rob-O at our fullest."

"Then it is unanimous," Gala-Na stated. "Rob-O, with what we have, we will aid you as much as we can. We, however, will still be frugal in our presence to the outside world so as to not compromise our sanctuary."

"Gala-Na, I hope to Aurora you can keep yourselves a secret for that is how my people are to survive from here on out," replied the hedgehog with a hint of excited pride in his voice and posture.

"Then consider us as your ally. The council has made it's decision!"

Before the gavel dropped, before the first muffled murmurs could become the roar that was soon to follow, Car-Le turned to Ames from the screen and bared to him a look of fright of which Wesson was sharing deep down inside.

"Does this mean we're going to _war_, Ames?"

Wesson never gave Ames the chance to answer. "Yes. And you can count on the Field Marshal to aid and supply..."

Letting his voice trail, the Legionnaire focused on the television set hanging from the ceiling once more. A whisper from Stenson to Rob-O's ear sent a sickening, churning anxiety from his nerves to his stomach. And from his bawls came a voice that shouted out to him with anger and vengeance that he swore he would never himself say, much less think it as he stared hard at Stenson on the monitor.

"_I'M NOT GOING OUT!"_

* * *

The close of the session brought handshakes, nods, some thanks, and a few tempered remarks to Stenson. He smiled through it all, mostly to show he was kind and cordial, and in the back of his head, that he had won for the sake of Rob-O. For every chance he found victory, even if it was a fight with Lar-Na, he savored it. Finding it now in the chaos of war on the Island was very slim and the foe wasn't as cunning as the Guardian, which was the travesty he viewed it as.

Of the fifteen minuets it took to chauffeur them to the north end of the city he and Lar-Na rode in silence in the pearl hover-limo. The rain had returned with the gentle gale from the sea, changing the white city into a pale-grey glaze, and Stenson was captivated even with the ill sight the whole way.

The waiting room in the lobby of Doctor Trish-Ha wasn't as crowded as before, and the prolonged wait as before elapsed rather quickly. None of it really bothered Stenson. Time was becoming short and Rob-O still had to be escorted back through Deer Wood Forest. Hopefully that was being taken care of with Ell-Tee looking for Wesson at the hospital. And yet, he still wasn't bothered by it.

What made him worry was his new surroundings. This time he and Lar-Na weren't ushered to an examination room. They sat idly in two leather chairs, his elbows perched on the arm rests and his fingers interlaced below his chin, straying his eyes from the open curtain window to Lar-Na sitting to his left. He briefly smiled, doing so not to show his worry–which was probably nothing anyways–and to strengthen her pride in him. From the eyeing she was giving him, someone else was going to be on watch for the last leg of the cruise.

"I worry, Stenson," she said suddenly, her face going even just as quick.

"About what, dear?" he replied, wondering and fearing what she would say; hoping it wasn't about her health.

"About Rob-O and the Centurions. I worry that by the time we return that we will be too late. That they will get compromised."

A slow nod affirmed his worries of her observation as well. "I've instructed Yanar not to do anything big and drastic until I have returned. Mostly to keep tabs on Rob-O and supply him."

"And if they get compromised by the time we do comeback. You of all people know that anything can happen in war. 'What can go wrong, will.'"

"Why I love you, Lar-Na. You keep me on my toes and at my wits." A sighing bow to his fingers helped to calm his wavering thoughts. "I have considered this, and my continency is–I'm sad to say–is to wait and see. We could be walking back to open arms, or we could be walking to our deaths. Either way we do our duty to these people...And that means we lie to Lien-Da if we so have to."

"Well then Field Marshal...I say our mission has become a success," Lar-Na said lavishly.

"Not quite. I promised Rob-O a little favor I would do for him in keeping Albion safe upon our return–"

"You're not?" Lar-Na trumped.

"_We are_. That port is a target of military value and I want it taken out for _their_ sake. Those damn machines almost killed us and who knows how many they will kill if they get reactivated." Stenson brought his deadpan face to his wife's. "We have the armament to do the job, we are light, and we can steam away before they have a chance to retaliate."

"That's a bit bold, _Stenson_," Lar-Na said. "We don't have a Guardian to teleport us to safety."

"We let the rain be our cover. The forecast is in our favor for this, and Lar-Na, we need to do this. Our guns can reach the port and still be far enough out not to be seen."

Lar-Na slowly shook her head under a firm face. "I still think it is bold, Stenson."

"And I agree with you, Lar-Na, but it _has_ to be--"

The sound of the door opening and a red furred echidna, her stringy hair brushed equally over her dreads, and her white doctor's coat waving behind, entered with a folder firmly in her hand. Doctor Trish-Ha, family physician for over twelve years, traveled the floor with her eyes falling to Lar-Na then to Stenson, that iced an ashen fear through his veins.

"Afternoon, Doctor," he greeted dryly, seeing the expression she had was one that he had sported once before...and it wasn't good.

And she said nothing. And she didn't plop herself behind her desk in her stately leather chair. Instead, she centered herself between Lar-Na and Stenson on her desk, the folder hovering over her bent knees.

For Lar-Na, she disregard Trish-Ha's and her husbands looks to each other. "So am I going to need steroids to kill the inflamation?"

When Trish-Ha answered, after a long pause, the subject was changed with her own question. "How long have you been coughing blood, ma'am?" she inquired with pinched lips and a twitching eye.

"Um...it was only today," Lar-Na said, stammering for an excuse which she knew wasn't impressing Stenson. "I know I should have seen a doctor about this for sometime now, but I never thought a simple bronchitis would come to this–"

"It's not bronchitis, Lar-Na."

Trish-Ha let her eyes drift back and forth between Lar-Na and Stenson.

There was something in her posture; the slight lean, the slow exhales, the calm before the storm. And seeing this, observing this once before on Wesson's injured behalf, sent a colder chill down Stenson's back and over every fiber of his body...knowing it involved his wife. Stenson now didn't want to hear it, becoming timid and vastly afraid in the same instant.

"Lar-Na...Stenson. I'm..." Trish-Ha took a breath, looked to the ceiling and then brought her conviction filled eyes to the husband and wife for over twenty years. "You have cancer in the lungs, Lar-Na, and it is rapidly spreading. I'm afraid our treatment options will only prolong your discomfort."

"You mean you can't _FIX_ this?" Stenson growled.

He was about to release more of his frustrations when Lar-Na reached over and grabbed his hand. Her face was filled with an anguishing terror that he felt, and cowered his head to his chest, realizing his outburst wasn't helping.

"You have all this technology, and you can't stop this?" he returned, calmer...guilty.

Trish-Ha let her voice stand as the apology. "If we had examined her months earlier, we could have done something, but her case has progressed in stages that in all my years and even our lab-techs, we haven't seen. It could be genetics. It could be conditions you have lived in...but my medical observations say, it's genetics."

The room went darker in silence; the pounding rain on the window adding to the depression. A moment passed, maybe longer, and Lar-Na had had enough of the still air.

"Thank-you, doctor."

In her years as a practicing physician, Trish-Ha knew when the cue to leave was announced from a patient. And she did so, silently closing the door behind her.

Twisting to Stenson, Lar-Na let out a sigh. Then she forced out another, it filled with anger. And in succession she found the strength to let one more pass that brought on her tears. "I should have listened, Stenson!" she bit in anger at herself. "I should have listened to you instead wasting our time with excuses–"

"Lar-Na, stop it!" Stenson said in a firm plea.

"I should've..." Lar-Na struck her leg with a fist before letting her posture dwindle to the floor.

Stenson wasn't going to have none of it; shooting himself up from his chair and scrambling to Lar-Na, who by the time he reached her was engulfed in her tears and grabbing at her face. He didn't let her work her head up to gaze at him, kneeling to her instead and fishing for her freehand with both of his.

"Don't place the blame with you, Lar-Na," he offered in a firm, but caring tone.

"Why...if I had done what my loving husband had asked instead of letting my defiance–"

Stenson inched himself closer to Lar-Na's freshly cherried face. "I married you for your defiance. I fell in love with you for your cold shoulders to me, Lar-Na," Stenson said, managing a smile to calm her.

"But I have taken you away from me, my love."

Her guilty stare made Stenson squeeze his and her hand, hoping to overpower her glare to something they could both relate to.

"The war's not over...we can fight this."

"And fight two...now three?" she shrilled.

"I can cry out in defeat to help you win this. You are my wife and I will use every muscle and every span of time I have to help you through this. No damn wars are going to stop me from saving my guiding light."

Lar-Na let a moment pass with her eyes growing firm.

Stenson didn't like it.

"I don't want my Field Marshal to go to the depths of defeat."

"Lar-Na," Stenson sputtered in protest, "you are not under my command. You are my wife, and I will hear nothing of this–"

"No, Stenson. You will. I didn't marry a coward...I married a warrior and if my last breath on this world is to lay silent so I can hear you cry victory, then so be it Stenson I will. No treasure will be worth more than that." –A curt inhale strengthened her eyes into his. "You will not surrender; I will not"..._cough_... "let it happen!"

And with that, she silenced any notion of a reply from her equal and embraced him on the floor.

Stenson stroked her locks, her biological and cybernetics; letting his angered eyes surrender to tranquillity then to aghast sadness. His love...his motivation through all his life was dying from something he had absolutely no control of. And to a warrior, it was criminal.

"Stenson..." whispered Lar-Na in a dry whimper. "I've seen many horrors with you. I have always had my fears with Lien-Da taking you away from me, and I have faced death at the end of blasters.

"But now...I'm scared, Stenson...I'm really scared."

He let in a quivering breath on his wife's words, tightening his embrace as he let it out.

"...I am too."

* * *

Well, this is it for sometime. Will update when I can, but it might be till November, but I shall play catch up and give you all things to keep occupied with. Again, thanks for the reviews, Sara and RadRed, and for your time.

Next: Aleutian...and Emi-La working together.

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	23. Killing Monsters

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NOTE: Edited version.

Greetings and welcome once again. 

To start off, I'm sad to say that this will possibly be the only update, and also sad to say I won't be able to update for some time. My work is taking me far and away and for long periods of time. But there are chapters done as drafts and I am getting close to the end. However, I am NOT going to throw it all together so I can be "done" with it. Far from it, I will do a revision and post those up once this is all complete.

To warn you, I simplified some of the writing in this chapter some, for one it is long, and it also has a lot of action and figured you all want this to flow with the speed. Really, Please tell me what you all think of this chapter. I haven't done action in awhile and I'm working some new angles with this.

Disclaimer: YEA! I own nothing of the original characters and stand to gain nothing on their behalf.

Enjoy.

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**Killing Monsters**

By: Mauser

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Two taps; wood meeting wood.

Somehow Aleutian heard them over the driving bass that pounded the walls and his numb head, and he found himself glancing up and over his right shoulder, courtesy of his eyes catching a passing shadow in the dark nightclub. His hands were relaxed in front of him with his arms and elbows resting on the bar counter, catching view of a dark clothed being–a cat he could see, a yellow spotted tail wavering under the slit of a black dinner jacket–limping out with a long wooden cane supporting his steps. Aleutian tried to size him up further, however the cat disappeared through a dancing mob and the apparent hood Aleutian's head was under.

Had he been sleeping? It felt as if he had as he returned his attention to his hands, questioning then why he was wearing something with long sleeves that seemed to cover his entire body. A robe, and a good one at that, fending off the cold nature of the place. Lazily he lifted his eyes up with his head, searching his clean face in the mirror behind the bar for any answers if he had dosed off or he really wasn't paying attention to something that he was supposed to. He found nothing and in turn, stared past himself at the dancing crowd's silhouettes from behind the flashing rainbow stage lights, seeing the music being spun by a hand-pumping duck, his left ear covered by a headphone. Typical of any DJ, Aleutian gathered.

"Hey!"

The light nudge at his elbow, and the demanding tone in the calm voice was enough to break his pensive stare at himself to bring it around across his right shoulder. Blue feminine eyes quizzically met his, finding she was dressed in the same hooded robe as he.

"You up to this?..." she asked gently, crawling her hand to his. "We can go if you don't think this is right."

Aleutian broke his stare and shifted his head back over his right shoulder, looking for the dark clothed cat–leopard. _"Two taps...two taps, and game on,"_ he mused quickly, his face painting the expression clearly. Why did it take him that long to figure out and remember the signal? And in the blankness in his mind, why did he feel he was forgetting something? Was it purpose for being here; in this dark, rallying night club that as he sized the place up further, was fevered with vice from every table he gazed upon, and with every smell he breathed in through his nostrils. Just down the counter from him, passed two Mobians–one taking his time with his drink, the other losing strength to have another–Aleutian quickly studied a male racoon dressed to the nines in a grey suit that matched his fur, talking it up with a scantily dressed rabbit, her skirt riding high way passed her thighs and a tank-top which was probably cut low if she'd turn to face Aleutian. From the looks of her smile and inviting posture, leaning slightly on the bar, whatever the racoon had in mind for fun this night was possibly going to come true.

And from the shady room came a shady subject that Aleutian had to strain his head further over but just enough not to attract suspicion to his wandering eyes. _"Target."_

He snapped his face back to Emi-La on the whim of his voice, the hood concealing his furtive movement. "Nack's here," he spoke smoothly.

Emi-La stole a quick glance between Aleutian and her before twisting her head back forward. "Fedora, pointed ears?..."

"And underdressed even for this place," Aleutian finished, fighting to make his voice to be heard over the music but not to be heard from prying ears.

Emi-La waited for a few seconds as, from what Aleutian could tell, she looked for the purple weasel amongst the jumping mob behind them through the mirror. "He doesn't go this low, does he?"

"It's the underworld, babe. All you can do is go low."

Aleutian couldn't see it but he knew Emi-La had be to smiling at his remark. "What do we do?...You know Control wants him?"

There was no mirth behind her voice which surprised Aleutian. Faltering, he retreated his tone to match hers. Seriousness.

"If he stops at the door, we take him. If he doesn't, we'll get him again sometime later."

Emi-La only had time to nod. Aleutian only had time to repent why he couldn't remember the whole reason why they were here, but his words were leaping from his lips as if he knew the reason anyhow. And for the life of him, he was predicting what the bartender was going to say when his rounds finally took him to the sitting Echidnas, although he really couldn't make them out under their hoods. He was pudgy, even for an ape, and he wore a striped suit without the blazer as if to show what the dress code should be for the place though the patrons took one of their own.

Placing his hands to support him on the counter, he leaned into them so as to hear their request when he asked for it. "And what can I get you two...uh?..."

"We're missionaries, dear brother," Aleutian expressed brightly, executing a reverent head-bow to add to his and Emi-La's cover.

"You're what?" the bartender asked, leaning in further with his stunned expression.

"Missionaries," Emi-La affirmed with a smile. "We've journeyed long and far and we seek the enlightenment of Aurora, but alas, we must briefly stop our sojourn for we _are_ tired."

The ape's open mouth was about to say something, perhaps stupid but could be dangerous all the same if fishing for a reply, when Aleutian cut him off. "Would your patrons be inclined for some guidance in their..." Aleutian glanced over his left shoulder to add emphasis, before turning back and casting an offering gleam towards the ape, "...savage ways."

The bartender looked onto them with perplexity that was really amusing to both Emi-La and Aleutian. What he said next was almost laughable if the ape's patrons weren't shady and possibly packing.

"Let me tell'ya's. Y'all have your work cut out for ya in this place. I hope you've got more than the _good word _to persuade people to go clean around here."

That "good word" so happened to be resisting Aleutian's left biceps to collapse against his rib cage. The weight, he realized after finally feeling it strain across his shoulders, wasn't there to test his endurance or strength. In fact, he felt healthier than what something inside of him was saying he shouldn't. It felt easier to hold his head up, it seemed. Easier to look around the room without feeling tired after the first swivel of his head. And looking at his equal he felt energized that for some reason, he had felt drained of.

He shrugged it off, consequently still trying to remember what he and Emi-La were there for. Aleutian raised his voice over the thumping bass. "You wouldn't have a room for us?"–the ape stood in silence, wondering if he should attend real customers then possibly go on with what he thought was becoming a prank. "This is an _Inn_, right, dear brother?" Aleutian added.

The bartender stammered for a second before he assured himself that the two "pilgrims" were in fact serious and were in fact looking for a room. "Sixty credits for the both of you's but I'll shave ten off if you'll _cleans_ the room while you stay. I don't refund money for a bad night's sleep, so don't come wanting you's credits back because of the music."

Emi-La nodded under her brown hood and fished out some cash from an inside pocket under the robe. All the while Aleutian put his attention to the stale cigarette smoke air, laced with the scent of those looking to populate the world just for pure pleasure, and focused his eyes to a flight of stairs that led up and rounded left just to the right of the dance floor and stage. They reminded him of his basement stairs, which also reminded him he needed to replace a few steps so he or Emi-La wouldn't come crashing down and break legs or arms. Dry-rotted from his vantage point and braced against a wall at either side, they looked daunting, but the light that protruded from the hallway was enticing for some unMobian reason.

Maybe because he just saw Nack the Weasel climb the short flight and round into the hallway. Or maybe it was for the purpose they were there for. _"If only I can remember when we get there?"_

When the cash was passed, nods were exchanged and the key handed out, Emi-La took point and Aleutian proceeded to follow her through the dancing crowd. It was hard to ignore, much less traverse through, all the tail grinding, bucking pelvis from dance partner to dance partner, and the mating enticements, but Aleutian kept his eyes glued to Emi-La's straight tail, keeping his distance while still keeping close. She strode by a flailing couple like they weren't there. She just held a step long enough that when the fox and mongoose–the mongoose a girl–grinded backwards then shot forwards, Emi-La hastened her next steps so when the beat came around to the next measure, she had safely scooted away before they reclaimed their dancing space. Aleutian, with his hands tucked inside his sleeves like the monk he was trying to portray–and finding something anchored around his right wrist and lower forearm–slid past the two while giving them a wider berth than waiting for the down beat to end.

It wasn't until they reached the steps, from the initial taps that stirred him awake it seemed, to seeing Emi-La's questioning, concerned blue eyes, and now watching her dancing tail fidget with every step she took up the stairs, that an empty feeling showered over Aleutian, washing his sense of right and wrong and purpose away, and now wondering as to the meaning of this new sensation. Her beauty had never faded from the drabs she wore, through he felt spellbound just by the mere sight of her. When she reached the corner of the stairs leaning into the hall and leaned one eye out to peer down it, he felt afraid for her, as if wishing her not to look at the unknown. And when she turned to him, her face coming close to his, her warmth from the air she exhaled wafting over him, and the challenging look that seemed to have flipped on like a switch, Aleutian felt as if he had been missing all this for almost eternity.

But why?

He stood stiff like a shy schoolboy–and even at eighteen he still felt at times he was–doing his best to twist his face into the same resolute expression Emi-La had.

And to his shaking senses, she moved in close to him, carefully and cautiously finding her way through his robe, and before he could protest, her warm hands slid around his chest...and grabbed the object under his shoulder. The jerk that released his silenced pistol was enough to jolt him back to the current moment, and of what they were setting out to do.

"He's at the door, talking with our main guy," Emi-La elaborated firmly.

Touching the wall, Aleutian kept his eyes open as his inner sight overlapped his vision. Tracing the outer wall to the door frame, then around it to the other side, finding that the frame itself stuck out some from the particle-board wall down the hallway, he concentrated his vision to look down the dimly lit corridor. A few bulbs hung without lampshades and at the end of the six-door hall was the emergency stairs that lead out, not in. Fire exit, Aleutian somehow reflected: locked on the outside, not the inside.

But standing in the middle, four doors down was the purple weasel Nack, his tan and black short brim fedora lightly sitting atop his pointed eared head, striking it up with a slightly obese hog, pinkish in skin color, almost to that of lividity, and coming on as if he was a pimp: white suit, black patten shoes, and what Aleutian could barley see as a matching white vest under the jacket.

"_Samuel Burr,"_ the Guardian-in-hiding, but playing rough all the same, seemed to remember. His alias, of which Samuel perhaps wasn't so fond of, was "Sam the Slime" and the grisly skin of the hog added to that analogy. He seemed to be sweating as his lips moved, finding it rough going as he spoke. Then a nervous tremor quivered from his arm as he shot his fingers up to his collar, pulling it away as if to breathe it seemed. But the nightclub could have hung meat in the place.

Aleutian's conclusion, as he brought his hand away from the wall, was simple and plain to those with experienced eyes. "Sam the Slime" was really "Sam the Junky," wasting his tainted money on the Honey Suckle Lemon Juice. It was a wonder how Robotnick could get his supply of slaves with the doped up trash he depended upon to get them with. But the game had changed. Everyone to Lands End knew what a Swat-Bot looked like, and later, the robotocized mobians he used. Thus came the calling for those whose motives and morals consisted of greed and anarchy to the extreme. Asking with promises of money and outlandish fortunes–for some came true, others thrown into the robotocizer just to save money–Robotnick had himself a nice little network to weed out those who were against him, and those who were just "conveniently" in the way, and to be put to good use. Slaves. Mindless, robotic slaves to help defeat Sonic and the rest of the Freedom Fighters.

It was just too bad for the "Fat-Man" that the help he took had their detractive vices. "Take down Nack," Aleutian quietly whispered in Emi-La's ear, "Sam will be easy in his state."

Emi-La never nodded; never gestured anything of confirmation. Only that of raising the pistol, both of her fine hands firmly wrapped around the grip; left supporting right, fingers hovering beside the frame with her left index finger placed over the trigger-guard itself. She was side-straddled on the stairs, positioning her body just behind the thin wall both echidnas were leaning up against, but letting the edge of the passageway conceal the better part of her face, while exposing her right narrowing eye down the hall and down the sights of the black pistol. Nack's head was resting just under the aligned sight picture–

She reared back from the passage way when Aleutian jerked hard on the only thing he could grab of her anatomy; her straightened tail. With the pistol coming down, she let her scathing face follow, bearing her canines at Aleutian but only showing them to the back of his head. And the instant it took her to fuss the seething grin, she retracted her lips to the passiveness of the cover role she needed to play.

And somehow, without seeing this, Aleutian knew Emi-La had given him her demanding look of "What the heck are you thinking!?" though his attention was squarely on the bartender who had appeared out of nowhere.

"What's going on here?...You two lost or something. Can't find your way to the only floor with _rooms_?" the ape festered in a hoarse, loud voice.

Aleutian had to think quickly. The bartender knew Aleutian heard him, so a second of thought couldn't be afforded without the raising of suspicions and without Emi-La dropping the ape where he stood, and in turn exploding the place in panics and screams, blowing their cover in the most dangerous of places in Casino Night City sky high.

"_I think that is where we are?"_

"Your steps, dear brother!" The pounding speakers were just on the other side of the staircase, and Aleutian really had to shout.

"What about 'em?"

"My sister, dear brother, is tired and is taking her time in not to fall, you see," Aleutian replied, playing his demeanor and tone as if asking for understanding. It was something he learned as lessons from Lopper. Those sad blue and green eyes were cute enough to be a deadly trap. What Aleutian lacked was his teacher's charm that seemed to come naturally with him.

"Whatever?" waved off the ape. He then cocked his head some, Aleutian feeling the itch that a warning was going to become of it. "If you hear crying or screams from any of the rooms, just ignore them, and don't go looking to 'save' anyone in these rooms, or it might be you two who needs the 'savin! Got me?"

"We mean no trouble, dear brother. We are just passing through."

"And if you go a'knocking on doors, you'll be passing right out of 'er. And if you go to d'em Freedom Fighters, I gar-_un_tee you's be praying to whatever gods you pray to for some heathens to find religion before they find you's."

Aleutian gave his best disarming smile, but in fact he really wanted to express his indifference with a firm look and knifing hand straight to the ape's throat. "It's Aurora, dear Brother, the goddess of whom gives us our destiny–"

"I don't care–just...just get the hell upstairs so I can get back to my customers." Aleutian smiled and bowed. The ape scoffed a _humph_ and trotted off. "Damn, holly-rollers," Aleutian could hear him shout amongst the pumping music.

Making a glowing, insulting face at the bartender's back, Aleutian diligently turned on the steps to see his equal almost laughing. Her smile was so warming to him. "I think someone needs a nap," she quipped under that same smile.

"Who? Me or the guy in the _monkey-suit_?" Aleutian said with a mirthful chuckle.

She laughed, but like the switch he was so accustomed to, and somewhere within him he felt he was longing for it as if he missed it, her expressionless, challenging face that she bore to all the evil they had stalked and later faced together, cameback. It energized him in such a way that he felt his facial features matching hers. And he loved it.

Peering back down the hall, she suddenly snapped the pistol up and dropped the safety this time with a flick of her thumb. _"No!"_ Aleutian can see her saying to herself, her lips perching at what he knew was a missed opportunity to bag one of the low-down scums of Mobius. Could she have done it? Yes. Could she have missed? Quite possibly, but the training between the both of them enforced the rule to take no unnecessary risk and no compromise. So she let Sam fumble his way down the stairs at the other end of the hall, watching his shadow flicker from the pulsing florescent light that tried to light the fire exit.

Now the long corridor was clear. Were they to follow them out and take them there? Something told Aleutian no when Emi-La left her spot from the passageway and entered the hall. He followed, checking his six o'clock out of habit and making sure no liquored and doped out couple were ready to make the bedroom. When they passed by the first room, Emi-La brought the pistol over her left shoulder, her hand crisply gripping the slide and offering the handle to Aleutian. He took it firmly, rolling the barrel up towards the ceiling and swinging the barrel clear from her back. As long as no one entered from the staircase, at which Emee would drop to the dusty wooden floor, and at which Aleutian would possibly let two rounds fly, depending on the contact, they were safe in their stealthiness.

Aleutian touched the passing walls to the rooms with his fingertips, letting his arm drag some out of resistence, while his pistol dangled from his left hand, hoovering by his leg. The second room he passed saw a male dog fighting his stupor so he could sleep, his hands supporting his sagging head, as he sat on the turned down bed. The third that came with a wall separating the two was occupied by an engaging couple sweating between the sheets. Aleutian couldn't see the species, but the idea of being intrusive made him snap his hand back from the sight. He still looked straight at the wall with his naked eyes, mustering an embarrassing expression which when Emi-La peered behind her back, she had the enticing feeling of what Aleutian had seen. Her Guardian did his best to shelter her from such passionate acts...but she had her fantasies. If only he would go the distance beyond a kiss and a cuddle to satisfy them for her. If only he would do just anything else exciting in bed except to sleep. _"If only."_

Shrugging off the curious, loving look Emi-La beamed to him, Aleutian returned his fingers to the wall. He was violently met with the reason _why_ they were there in the forth room. He wanted to shake off and wrench at what his _gift_ had cursed him to see, but he stayed true to his collective self. Instead he felt his hand stiffen on his black pistol as he felt his inner warrior self become emboldened to use it.

Three girls: a kitten–and still that–swollen and brutally beaten by the standing shadows Aleutian could see in the dark room. She was hunched over a supporting shoulder from a fox, her white evening gown soaked in purple blood but her face and posture was remained strong in her presence of mind. Beside her, facing away from Aleutian and the wall he was projecting through, sat a frightened squirrel, her fur texture of which he could make out matching that of his best-friend–if he got back home to the island to see him–Prince Elias Acorn. And on that thought, Aleutian prayed to Aurora that she wasn't Sally. Emi-La would have to cook them both a fine dinner just to break what could be the bad news between all of them: _"You have a brother, Sally. Oh...and I ran away from home and I too have a brother," _Aleutian could hear himself say.

Again, he shrugged his forethoughts away and put his alert attention to the situation at hand. _"All gagged...nice! At least they won't scream, but you're rotten scums for doing it!"_ He sighed roughly, which caught Emi-La's ears and made her swing her head back to her equal. An affirming nod was all he gave, making her stop by the fourth door while he stepped around her and took up his position on the adjacent side. There, they took great care to stay clear from the fatal-funnel of the frame–where the edges of the door can silhouette someone and make them an easy target if they couldn't find cover fast enough.

Emi-La waited. She hoovered by the wall just as Aleutian was doing, watching him perform his abilities that he was born with, seeing through the walls and peering into the horrors within. A moment more she was feeling the curse of impatientness, tightening and loosening her hands to ease the tension. She wanted to tap to the beat of the muffled bass from down stairs. But she shied the thought away, only guessing–and guessing correctly–that the bass was doing a number on Aleutian's sight, watching him frustratingly search the vacant hall for the objects he was trying to identify in the room.

He lifted his hand away and produced three digits; then a flat, leveled hand plus a finger churning out an imaginary ring; then four fingers followed up with a fist; then two with a finger pointed towards her; then two more fingers and a thumb pointed towards him. Lastly, and not something she wanted to see, an additional index finger ending with his puzzled eyes.

And thus she broke down the silent language as this: _"Three captives centered in a circle. Four hostiles; two my end, two his with a possible fifth."_ And the possible meant two things: one, the room was big enough to where Aleutian reached the bounds of his gifted abilities and couldn't see further inside, and two, she needed to do fast work on the other two at her end so Aleutian could have the amble breathing room to either reload, or target identify and if possible, take down the "surprise" if he or she is a threat.

"_Hold on dears...freedom is coming,"_ Emi-La prayed to the poor souls in the room, echoing the chant across her face at her loving equal.

It was enough for Aleutian to let out his determination across his body and slip his right arm out of his sleeve. Blindly he fished for the two yarns that held his monk's cloak to together and undid them. Emi-La followed suit like clockwork, untiing hers quicker and sliding the brown garment off her shoulders, letting gravity have it as a sporting gift.

She was immaculate, her body filling out and brightly showing under her saffron tank-top, her legs femininely curved as ever but showing the muscles of someone who exercised regularly, discreetly covered in a tan pair of trousers cut short at the calves. Her shoes a cross between boots and high tops, black in leather...and her favorite pair, Aleutian reflected. Across her shoulders was a black webbed harness supporting her black collapsible bow-staff, and centered across her back an Overlander plasma carbine which at her size–and Aleutian's–was more like a full fledged rifle. It too had a hard, square frame such as Aleutian's _hush-puppy_, but in contrast had bulkier lines and features with a full trigger guard that ran the length of the cell-well that doubled as a handle.

He on the other hand matched the crowd downstairs: a blue t-shirt to match his eyes, a pair of black cargo pants with more pockets than he wanted, however, it wouldn't give him away as someone with the law, and to his distaste, a pair of maroon suede shoes that he was glad as all get out they were only for cover and not his fashion. His shoulder rig was tight across his back and chest, still weighing some with the spare magazines under his right arm. The tight feeling he had across his right wrist and forearm was that of his quick reload: a spare magazine rig which ran diagonally down to the bottom of his wrist, and with a velcro opening at easy reach to snag the loaded mag inside.

In regards that they had packed light for the evening still had the notion they were loaded for bear. They were posed to rumble. Posed to become the freers of the enslaved...once more. And before they nodded and checked their tools of their deadly trade, the two echidna lovers, at their cozy home–if and when Aleutian decided to break the fragile ice she was wanting him to shatter–closed the distance between them and stole a passionate long kiss, wrapping their free hands around each others' shoulders before they briskly stepped back from the fatal funnel.

The collapsible bow-staff, a gift from Lopper among many to his two best and brightest students, was unsheathed from a round-leather holster under Emee's left arm. Rotated by birth on a machining lath from a time no one has been able to confirm, only to suspect, its folded cold steel body on the outside was glossy black and short–about the length of Emi-La's arm from shoulder to forearm. But like so many of Lopper's deceptions, including the lopped ear rabbit himself, what was portrayed outside the fur wasn't really what was under the skin. Two high tensioned springs, once measured at two hundred pounds per square inch, were separated between themselves by a space of solid steel and set to propel a pair of two and half foot steel rods at either side to complete the staff's full length in a blinding furry. It's use had many qualities but some still lay secret to the loving equal who wielded it. Some she managed to figure out on her own, beside the inevitable super-sized beating stick she was setting the thing up to do, but also a very compact battering-ram to gain entry to forbidden places. All Em-La had to do was press down on a tab at the head of the end she was going to use to send the bars of bone crushing death out from their holes.

Aleutian gripped his pistol with both hands, leaning his left shoulder on the wall to push himself into action when the door shattered open, anticipating Emee's confirming nod that she was ready. He could only admire her for the brief second of her energized beauty, her mouth gapping just enough to show that she was getting irritated with the waiting and wanting this to be done and over with. Her right shoulder supporting herself as well on a wall, legs bent slightly at the knees. She was cultivating the unstoppable furry Aleutian so vividly, and affectionately, remembered during their stay, and subsequent training at Lopper's low-lying house in the Badlands. From her stance now, she was a far cry from the naive girl he had found in the woods some three years ago.

And he loved every minute of having his tail handed to him from her. And she like wise.

A curt breath. He nodded, determination echoing in it.

Seeing it, she twisted a charged grin across her lips, her eyes narrowing in delight...becoming blood thirsty, focusing on the door. Did Aleutian worry about her indulgent look? Yes, to some extent. Why? Because once they got home, or even before that, she'd be back to her vivacious cooking-self and doing her best to either fat him up or wearing him out to keep him slim.

"_If only he'd go further than wrestling games!" _she lovingly muttered to herself, counting the bass beats with taps on the staff of her right hand. _"But he has, hasn't he,"_ she confessed to the walls.

Aleutian, to comfort his distressing mind, touched the wall one last time to gaze inside before he went full throttle. He didn't like what he presumably saw. The DJ had cranked up the noise further, and Aleutian was searching through the dancing static fuzz the sound waves produced over his gift. A bulky wolf on his side of the room inched his way closer to the door, arms crossed over his bare fur chest, his belt to his jeans undone–from what Aleutian could tell–and eyeing the female fox for his barbaric pleasure. And seeing this, plus the pistol the wolf had planted at the small of his back, sprang Aleutian's warrior voice to his ears. _"Target...light him up!"_

It happened to the millisecond. Aleutian leveled his pistol to the blank wooden wall; Emi-La placing her finger on the spring-release. Finger on the trigger, the safety still dropped from before, Emi-La anchored her feet to jump inside.

Aleutian stroked the trigger once...twice...feeling the slide buck back a third time, never hearing the brass casing flop on the floor thanks to the pumping music, nor the wood splintering from the bullet impacts at close range. Emi-La never witnessed any of this. The_snapping_ sound and the shattering of the door handle overlapped the working slide of Aleutian's heater. With the door still flying open, she pounced inside in a blinding blur of red and saffron, her teeth baring her canines to their fullest show, and her hand rotating her staff to the other "loaded" end. The wolf she saw once inside to her left was rearing in pain from his back as he fell forward to the floor. As quickly as she saw him flop down, her tactical mind-set was searching for the next possible threat on her side of the darkly lighted room.

She found it not more than two feet from her, startled and fumbling for his weapon. Not giving the stunned goat a chance to brandish what he used for a gun, Emi-La crouched down over her knees, pointed the staff at her new adversary's left knee and pressed the button. It popped out like a jackhammer, slamming dead center on the goat's kneecap and shattering it as well as hyperextending it in the direction it wasn't meant to go. Backwards.

Aleutian came barreling around the fleshly open door, his knees bent and feet rolling from heel to toe for stability of his aim, observing the goat falling in screaming pain, and Emi-La shooting her staff up to nail him square in the chin, Aleutian saw another dark figure looming behind the goat...and to the Guardian's left–his next threat.

The black furred rat wasn't hard to spot, even the blackest of clothed or furred subjects can silhouette themselves in dark rooms with the lowest of lights. Aleutian only observed the rat's right hand cross his body to draw his pistol from the center of his pants. It was enough show of being a threat to let fly two rounds at center-mass from the glowing night sights of Aleutian's _heater_. No sound came from the mobian, other than his limp body falling backwards where he stood and crashing on a cheaply made table, before flopping to the floor.

"WHAT THE–"

Emi-La's eyes were glued to the raving hound-dog that just found himself a bat in a convenient corner on her side of the room. He yelled a charging war holler, which didn't phase her one bit, and pumped his legs after her, raising the bat over his head for a quick and fatal blow to hers. Doing as she was trained she held her ground, stiffening her hands on the staff are two-thirds of it was pointed to the dog's right side, her feet raised on the balls and positioned in the two corners of a phantom box.

Down came the bat.

And there went Emi-La, hopping diagonally in one fluid motion and delivering a down strike across the left side of the hound-dog's exposed muzzle. The force of her strike sent him to the ground but he rolled out of it, climbing to his feet and preparing himself for a side-swing with the bat still firmly in his hands.

Aleutian was maneuvering his pistol to the hound-dog to back up Emee. He was pulling his sights in alignment just when a beaver with a filleting knife happened to show up from the room that he couldn't see into. Here was the possible third threat, and he wasn't too happy, his bucktooth smile impassive but his eyes attentively looking for any spot on Aleutian's anatomy to slice up. He must've found it for he bolted straight at the echidna, never caring, or possibly never seeing the firearm in Aleutian's hand, as he drew back his right hand to thrust the steal blade into Aleutian's chest.

The Guardian never missed a beat with his instincts, putting his pistol on point and double-tapping the beaver at his rib cage, making fast work of the trigger. Again, he felt the pistol buck from the violently working slide twice over, but the beaver still kept coming, still charging hard, but faltering in pace some. Aleutian fed him one...two more shots, the brass casings ejecting and his right eye catching the glimmering reflections falling to the floor. All he heard was the muffled _sniff_ of the bullets biting the air and the beaver's meaty tissue become punctured by them.

But the beaver still kept coming!

Was Aleutian missing? He couldn't be! No time to figure it out–the knife was throttling forward. Aleutian finding no answer than just to keep shooting, he fired another two rounds, sidestepping back under his quaking knees.

There, the beaver finally winced back in pain. His knife however was still in motion...cutting the empty air where Aleutian had once stood, slicing it to the floor along with a new fresh furry corpse.

Emi-La's aim was dead-on, slamming the staff on the dog's wrist and sending the sharp pain of bone meeting metal to his brain between his droopy ears. And those happened to be her next point of aim, spearing the blunt end at his hidden ear canal and driving it straight to the other side, if she could get passed his skull. The searing agony was enough to stun the dog into not wanting to resist further, giving Emi-La a free berth to knock the bat out of his hand with a down swing while propelling herself off the ground and spinning completely around to slingshot her next blow across his head. She came down hard with gravity adding force to the strike from her strengthened arms and timed in unison to her feet touching the ground. She felt the soft, fleshy sensation of skin and fur impacting steal through the staff, followed by the softer feeling of his skull giving way to his brain before his body sagged lifeless to the floor. In effect, he was either dead or he was going to be hand-fed for the rest of his days on Mobius.

Thirty seconds. From entry to chaos to order, the whole ballet of brutal violence took thirty seconds.

"Clear right!" announced Emi-La, breathing hard but keeping her eye on the screaming goat. Between his pants of air she could hear the girls in the huddled circle screaming as well through their tape gags.

"Clear left!" chorused Aleutian, hands still firmly wrapped around his pistol, legs flexed, shoulders and arms locked forward.

Emi-La pressed the locking tab down on one end of the staff, placed it on the floor while still kneeling closely over her feet, and slammed the rod back inside the staff, then repeated the process for the other end. The springs were still stiff from over time, leaving Emi-La a tad bit spent from the chore of collapsing the staff back to its dormant-self.

"Check the girls, babe," Aleutian said passively, doing his best to ignore the raving goat on the floor, balling at his knee. "Better yet, check him–"

"Ahead of 'yea, Aleutian!" Emee retorted evenly. She rose up from her knees, holstered her staff and swung the large carbine from her back, pressing the auto-stock extender switch on the end of the weapon. A twin-rail butt eased it's way back, locking into her shoulder. "Don't move!" she ordered dryly to the wriggling goat. Apparently it was too much to ask.

She kicked him over on his left shoulder, exposing his back to her. Keeping her right hand on the pistol-grip of the carbine, she reached down quickly with her left and snatched the Saturday-night-special plasma-pistol from the goat's waist line. The small thing could barley fit in her hand. "What's the matter–your friends won't let you play with _real_ toys," she hissed, checking over him, then the girls, then following her soul-equal with her eyes to the unchecked room to the left.

With his weapon up, and side stepping to the right of the doorframe, Aleutian began the art of clearing the fatal-funnel as if he were a shy, nervous kid cutting a pie. His eyes were wide, attentively darting. His hands were sweating as he adjusted his grip. Mouth slightly opened, lips dry. Uncountable possibilities were running through his trained head during all this as he cleared the left wall of what seemed like a dungeon he was wanting to get into. A terrified girl or guy running out–_"don't shoot!"_ An angry customer wanting revenge–_"Make him cooperate or heat him up!"_ Weapon jams–_"Cover, clear, press-on!"_

Right foot crossing over left, hovering low. Finger off trigger; center area of the room clear of–

"_Contact!"_

And his finger stayed its residency on the frame–she was crying in the far right corner of the room.

"_Don't shoot!"_ he yelled out to himself, watching the eyes of the terrified hedgehog in the corner shouting the same order at his. "Emee, I have one in here! She looks pretty bad."

Emi-La gently ripped the grey duck-tape from the fox's mouth, making her shrill from her lips being pulled off along with some of her natural fur. "You okay, sweetie?" she asked before diverting her calming, but yet concerned eyes to the room Aleutian had just entered.

"Ah-huh," came the tearing response. "Dorry, please look at her. They beat her just for fun!"

"Which one's Dorry?" Emi-La asked. The fox nodded to the slumped kitten on her shoulder.

Emi-La placed her gentle hand on the manx kitten and gave her a lite shake. She groaned hypnotically, a good sign that she was alive...however barely. "Honey?" she called out to Aleutian, wrestling to remove the bindings from the foxes hands as quickly as she could. A fast flick of a slim folding-knife from her back-pocket cured that dilemma.

"What?" Aleutian shouted back over his shoulder, holstering his pistol in the same instant. Then off came the tape, followed by the hedgehog's pain filled eyes from the action.

"What do you want me to do with the _goat_?"

"Talk to him...get as much as you can out of him. I'll be there in a jiff, babe."

She shrugged her face. "Take your time."

Looking to the fox, Emi-La gave her the knife before checking over her shoulder and the now, somewhat, subdued goat thanks to his shattered knee. "Can you help the rest?" she asked, squatting over her knees.

"Anything to help you. Thank-you for everything–"

"It ain't over yet, sweetie," Emi-La interrupted seriously, "can you carry her out if she needs it?"

"I've saved my strength just lose these goons. But yes, I can help the others out."

"Beautiful!" Emi-La replied doggedly.

And then, she slowly glided over to the goat, his hand shaking over his compound fractured knee–she could actually see bone sprouting out from his fur and skin and pant leg. The hound-dog just behind him was starting to twitch from his jolting nerves. _"Yep...he dead!"_

"Sorry about that," she begged apologetically, "I know knee injuries can be a kick in the tail."

Violet blood was crawling over the right side of his face from the small cut she inflicted from her strike. It was clotting some. He scoured a painful glance at her, still lying on his left shoulder. "Cut the crap, BIT–"

Emi-La did, gripping his knee with the slightest touch. With his damaged nerves at the height of tenderness, her easy tap was enough to repeal his vulgar name-calling and retreat back to his flailing screaming. "Now that's not nice, with little me trying to say _I'm sorry_." She then produced a mirthless grin that she was glad Aleutian was too occupied to see. "Guess that means we're not friends...too bad."

Aleutian in the other room had both his hands and shoulders occupied with the limping hedgehog. "_Animals,"_ she choked out without any show of remorse with Aleutian helping her out of the room that she wished someone would burn. He did his best to by-pass the pooling blood of the face down beaver, but he still was an eyeshot away. Upon seeing him, what will-power she still possessed shot through her heart and pumped her legs to get away from Aleutian. When she was fightingly released from the echidna, she set to kicking the beaver's side, rolling the limp body around as if it were a ball before her dwindling strength took over, and Aleutian raced to catch her.

She screamed in venom. She succumbed to her tears soon after.

"Don't," Aleutian said solemnly, bringing her head around to look away from what he now gathered as the _thing_ who possibly had raped her. Guilt he felt with the conclusion of not having busted down the door sooner. "Don't loose your innocence just on retribution, ma'am."

And his own words sent a crawling chill all over his body.

Emi-La watched the whole ordeal; heard all the spoken words, finding pride in them along with shear hope that they held the true meaning she so wished. _"Please, my love..."_

Her acute eyes fell back to the goat. "How's Nack involved in this?"

The goat didn't respond as fast as she wanted, but her lower eyes back at his knee exercised what working brain-cells he had and his lips began moving quickly. "He fronts the cash..._and_..."–he held his breath to ease the pain–"and he provides the middle people to transport the _product_ to Robotropolis."

"Wow, product," Aleutian observed scathingly. "How much is Sam getting out of all this?"

"A thousand-a-head. We picked up five yesterday."

"How and where?" Emi-La shot next, showing she was eyeing his knee once again.

"Here...at the _bar_. We _juice_ 'em up and we lead them up here. _Sometimes_."

"Sometimes?" Emi-La repeated, teed off.

A bite at the lower lip; it didn't ease the hammering of his nerves either. "These we just snatched off the street. The kid was easy--"

"To beat?" Aleutian finished for him, placing the hedgehog down beside the kitten.

"Hey, she wouldn't settle down."

"No, that's not it," violently festered the fox, looking to the two echidnas as if she'd been robbed herself. "They did this for fun–telling us, 'You'll forget it when you're robotocized.'"

Emi-La cast a murderous gaze at the goat. "Wonderful."

"My friends are gonna crush you two," the goat said, finding a laugh under all his pain, "and then we'll see you robotocized and might have our _fun_with your woman."

Aleutian fought himself to not take out his pistol and let the goat have what was left in his magazine. Once he had saved Emi-La from her becoming a bunch of dogs' plaything, and he would always get tore up inside and always looked for an avenue to release his anger when someone talked about his Emee that way. But he stayed cool

"Fun will be had at your expense, bub!" he spat out. "Our friends aren't as kind as us, and _you will_ be seeing them shortly." A resolute lung full of air eased him back to reality and to the operation. "Emee, we need to scoot."

She nodded. Standing to, she paced to the three girls, the squirrel finding her shaking legs better than the rest. "We all set?" Emi-La asked.

"Been," replied the squirrel, her head covered with a blue scarf with the rest of her clothes ripped to shreds.

"That's what I wanted to hear," Aleutian affirmed gingerly. "Help each other as best you can. We'll cover the way out."

"Okay," said the fox, supporting Dorry across her shoulder, the squirrel doing likewise with the hedgehog.

As of the entry, the exit was done quite the same. Aleutian pressed up against the doorframe to the hall on the right, Emi-La at the left with their weapons lowered at tactical ready, eyes peering out at their respective corners of the hallway. Aleutian nodded first; all clear. Emil-La repeated the gesture but with more firmness from her elegant face.

She stepped out, pointing the blaster towards the fire-exit stairs before swiftly turning one-eighty towards the main flight down to the bar. Aleutian wasn't far behind, rounding the door frame, weapon up and carefully duck-walking toward the fire-exit. One by one the girls followed him, the fox limping with Dorry laboring feverishly to stay conscious over her shoulder. The squirrel on the other hand was happy as can be to get the hell out of Dodge; she almost was pushing the hedgehog out the door. When they cleared, Emi-La staggered behind them purposefully, keeping the metallic coated plasma carbine leveled at the stairs. If one person so much as resembled the monsters they had just slain in the other room walked up the stairs, their night and their body was going to be _hotly_ ruined. And gladly nothing came of it. When she touched down on the first step, she brought the carbine down and focused to her equal. Aleutian had inched the windowless, wooden door open, taking great care not to rattle the door lever.

His eye glimpsed down on a rain soaked alleyway, inhabited by trash-barrels and a grey stray-cat looking in one to snag its next dinner. The door creaked. Just enough to snap the cat's head up, freeze, judge the threat, and suddenly leap off the barrel and scampered down the alley with a whipping tail. At which Aleutian flung the door open, knowing his cover was blown, and quickly searched the direction the cat went with his gun doing the eyeing, then swung around to his back at blinding speed, weapon in tow. Nothing but the sounds of the gutters pouring water into the alley, and the passing of a hover-car racing down the street, left to right could be heard. The nightclub was three buildings deep from the street, Aleutian looking past the red brick monsters for a flash of a headlight or the flash of a blaster. Either one could definitely help cut the tension he was rearing to kill in the back of his head.

Emi-La stalked up behind him, touching his back with hers, and aiming down the dark alleyway in her direction. "_Citizen_?"

"Not yet," he growled.

The glow of a triple flash of lights resonated around the glossy brick walls. "Six o'clock, Aleutian."

"Excellent. Not my idea to go singing in the rain down some unfriendly streets."

"You and me both, _dear_," Emi-La bolstered playfully, lowering her carbine, but still at-the-ready, and taking her first steps towards their contact.

It was agonizingly slow for Aleutian, no matter how many times he'd escorted precious cargo out of bad areas and clubs such as this. Alley's were notorious for the obvious reasons, bad places to fight in: no cover, and one can easily get blocked in and trapped. And to add to his burdened mind as he squared his pistol evenly down the alleyway, they had left the goat to blabber which direction they had gone. _"It was either him doing it later, or blowing our cover and dragging him by the scruff of his neck, bub!"_ Aleutian reasoned with himself loudly. At least now he would have a better chance to get the drop on the "reenforcements" if they came.

To his relief, none did when they reached a dull green truck at the end of the alley. The driver's side door slowly came open and out came a leopard, the same darkly suited leopard Aleutian had awoken to.

The brass tip of his cane snapped on the concrete as he stepped out of the driver's compartment and closed the door. Walking up to Emi-La he seemed to have smiled. "_Rosebud_," he said under a thick English accent.

"It's your sled, kid," Emi-La countered, placing the carbine around her back. "Citizen Cane, I presume."

"You presume well, Head Cook."

Aleutian just had to put in. "Death from within."

"Aye...I hear you can kill someone just by overloading their cranium with lavish taste?" said the leopard. "I hope my intel was to the 'T'?"

"Every word, _Cane_," Aleutian replied flatly, though somehow he _still_ didn't quite remember what the information was.

"There is a goat upstairs," Emi-La said, "his knee is shattered so your_feeler_ has a short night ahead of him. Not really our thing."

"So Control has instructed. I shall take these lovely darlings and pass on your information to my man. He is quite good at _badgering_ the goods out of someone."

Aleutian wasn't a bit fond of the euphemism, secretively wondering as to why he wanted to shout obscenities at the strange face that came to mind. But he held his tongue. "Did you see Nack leave out of here?"

"His hover-bike. Bloke is getting wet tonight. I was afraid he was going to see me when I was looking for a place to park and read the paper, but I think he has other trivial things on his mind than to pay attention to an old _cat_ like me."

"And_Slimeball_?" Emi-La asked, helping the fox and Dorry to the back of the truck.

"Went back inside. Apparently he hasn't had his lot of fun yet," _Cane_ replied watching Emi-La's kind hands help the pure but now damaged souls.

"We want him," Emi-La returned. "This just has to stop."

"It isn't going to, _Cookie_,"_Cane_ replied eerily.

Aleutian walked passed the leopard, turned Emi-La around with a loving touch and stuck his pistol down her pants close to the small of her back before concealing it with the excess fabric of her tank-top.

"Well, at least we can try," she said, turning and smiling at Aleutian. "Care to dance?"

* * *

Sam the Slime was working diligently to add a better alias to the list he wanted to shred; _Sam the Womanizer_.

Needless to say, after another hit from his flask of "juice" and his heavy, bulky-self desperately working the moves, he wasn't getting anywhere near to bedazzling a thin figured goose. Her skirt was short, resting midway down her thighs, and from the outset of the night, she wanted to attract someone with better manners than the hog who seemed to fancy her. Unfortunately, arousing clothes for those hidden messages didn't come with ciphers to keep the scum away.

At least that was what Emi-La was reading on the goose's agitated face. _"Good for you sister! You can see past him," _she praised, holding on to Aleutian's shoulder with her right hand while grasping his free hand with the other. She hated that she had to push out the tender feeling of having his hand so close to her rump.

Aleutian spun her, working her fingers like they were piano keys before grasping them and drawing her close; each other's eyes burning into one another. What the DJ had spun–and had been paid to be spun by Mr. Burr–was something of a blues-tango; slow on the beat, minor in the key. And for Aleutian and Emi-La, it wasn't hard to dance to. She could tell her Guardian was bathing in the milky reverb of the backing guitar.

And when he spun her again and brought her back, his hand was smooth, phantom like; reaching at her belt line and pulling the weapon out. When she closed right back into him, her chest rubbing up against his, they wrapped their leading hands between them...and exchanged the pistol to hers. A break in the chorus, three beats with the guitar down stroking the fourth chord. They tapped their shoes to it, waving their carefree heads away and back. And thus the song played it's way back to the verse line. No breaks, just a smooth flowing tune. What Emi-La wanted for her equal to dance steadily.

Her aim had to be precise. One jerk, one stray dancer, one stray dancer behind the hog, those simple acts was all it took to lower themselves to that of the slime she was eyeing to kill. Did she like it? Absolutely not! Did Aleutian like it? The answer could be construed to be the same, but the voice in the back of her mind was nagging at her to be careful...to kill the _real_ monster if it shows.

And to the secrecy of her mind, she was saying loudly that something felt so deja' vu. But she knew why!

Aleutian felt her step on his suede shoe. He squeezed her back in response and danced on a spot on the floor he would never move from.

Her blue eyes became a salacious beacon, casting to Sam who soon had enough of enticing the goose and was looking for an easier prey to go around with.

* * *

He moved with a lazy swagger. He didn't care. The plane he felt himself trancing upon pushed the idea of defeat from an "unsporting" woman out of his swirling head with ease. If he looked uncool that was for others to decide, not him. After-all he could buy his way to love if need be–

"_Hold the bus!"_ he gasped in his daze.

He could see them, glowing wetly under the shifting lights in the dark. Her blue eyes! He would've disregarded them completely, for she already had a partner, but the inviting look they had, he couldn't let the temptation pass to see further. Sam tried to put the moves on. She didn't blink so they must've been working. He began to dance closer, swinging his pelvis around some for extra measure.

"_Blast!"_ he cursed; a dancing couple cut him off to those calling eyes he was now in search for. He quickly remembered her partner was wearing a blue shirt, such as her _eyes_, and she was short enough just to cast them over his shoulder.

"_Ah-Ha! There you are!"_ They were still moving around in the same spot. The closer he got, the better he studied her and _him_. They both had long hair; her's mixed thinly and bulky. Whatever species they were, she was looking for another. He could_ feel_ it just by the stare she was giving him. And thus he tried to move in.

However, another couple cut between him and his new quarry. This time it was fine. He needed the space to work out an idea to pull her away from her dance partner she seemed she wanted to exchange–

This time when his obstacle had cleared, he saw only one blue eye this time...the other rounder...blacker...and for some reason or another, that was all he saw afterwards.

* * *

The hammer snapped. Aleutian could hear it as plain as day for Emi-La had the pistol resting over his shoulder, her free hand still resting at his waist. With the hammer striking the firing pin, the primer touched off the powder of the purposely loaded sub-sonic round–which never broke the sound barrier with it's audible _crack_–and sent the nine millimeter hollow-point missile on a one way course to Sam the Slime's head.

The hog never felt his body slam to the ground, his face lying on its right cheek, his eyes still open widely, as if watching the feet of the dance floor in a vacant stare.

She rolled the pistol down from Aleutian's shoulder and tucked it back into her waist. Rasing on her tip-toes, she drew her lips close to his. "Let's go," and kissed him.

* * *

The two echidnas made their way out from the club, still dancing in their strides and looking the part of two in-love party goers. In reality to Aleutian, the cover couldn't be further from the truth.

Emi-La led him by the hand, hurrying her pace when a scream shrieked over the thumping bass just down the block. Some girl had just found Sam! Ignoring it, they turned a corner to the left, then entered down a lighted alley. This time they were running, Emi-La giggling some with Aleutian now chasing her. And when she disappeared around the end of the alley onto another street, what they had just done, the killing and rescuing, had become distant to them. Like they were in a totally different world living totally different lives.

"I'm driving!" she gassed when Aleutian appeared from out of the alley.

Under the winking stars and window lights of the surrounding buildings was Emi-La, fishing for the keys to the a sleek-bodied, but mean looking stance of a red car. It's grill was mesh, shaped like a frowning snake and headlights textured like that of a prowling shark. When he got to the passenger door, Aleutian couldn't help but trace the_Spartan_ spear over the supporting doorframe by the rear window.

The locks shunted open and Aleutian was startled after he opened the door. Sitting in the passenger seat was a webbed bag and on top of it, a blue scarf and a note. "I think _Citizen Cane_ has vices of his own," he said, frowning.

"Oh?" said Emi-La opening the driver side door.

A raised brow, "I think he's returning the gift of the carbine for," –he peered in the bag. "Hey! More books."

"Wonderful...more stuff for you to lounge around and spend our days-off without me being a part of it."

Aleutian raised his embarrassed, hurtful face over the roof of the car. "Well, Emee..."

"Don't_Emee_ me, _Aleutian_. I'm sure I can find fun things for you to do with _me_ around the house--"

"Hey, check it out, babe. A scarf and a note," Aleutian smartly interrupted; Emi-La finding the calculated change of subject incredulous.

"What's it say," she said snidely.

"'Dear operators,'" Aleutian quoted, "'thanks for the carbine, and I hope I never use it. However, I took the liberty of finding your car's locking frequency and left parting gifts. For the _bookworm_, more to his collection,'" Aleutian couldn't help but smile, "'and to the lovely lady, a scarf that one of the girls said she would like for you to have. She twisted my arm, and I caved. Hmm...what if the enemy tries that. Sincerely; CC.'"

Aleutian folded the white paper note and stuck it in his pocket. Reaching down to the seat he took the folded scarf and handed it to Emi-La across the hood. She didn't let a moment pass, unfolding the blue silk linen before wrapping it around the top of her head, combing her hair just right to be held back by it then letting the scarf drape down around her abdomen. Aleutian couldn't help but gawk warmly at her added seduction.

"Where to," he asked, feeling his heart pounding to go home and be safe in her company.

"Store, food, then a way to get us back to the coast."

Aleutian's eyes went wide in protest. "Shopping; here at this time of night?"

"You wanna eat?" Emi-La scoffed.

A warm, playful smile. "Maybe like a mere peasant instead of like a king."

She frowned on his response. "You want left overs?" she asked slowly.

"We gotta clean the fridge out somehow! We can't just keep getting more and more stuff without a place to pack it. I mean, Emee; the reason I get more weapons and books is because I can store them all in the basement. C'mon, my legs aren't as hollow anymore."

"Hence the _basement_," she countered brightly.

He stared at her, deadpan. "You're impossible, you know that?"

She squirmed a smile, before managing to stick her tongue at him. "Get in the car and lets go."

Aleutian found himself smiling, putting his leg eagerly on the floorboard and facing down the narrow street before he slid inside–

"Aleutian!"

The deep monotone voice made him stop short of sitting. Regaining his balance, the Guardian eased himself back up, supporting an arm on the open door. His nerves were speaking to him this time while his eyes gazed down the street and a figure in black coming his way. It walked stiffly, it's strides determined in a cold way. Stepping under an amber casting street lamp, Aleutian could see the figure wearing a long rain coat and large brimmed hat. The attire wasn't all that suspicious, after all it looked to have rained not too long ago.

But it was the voice that told Aleutian to go to the highest of alerts. And it was the gun in the figure's hand that made him reach for his–

_Emptiness_!

His shoulder rig was bare, only his fingers finding the open snaps to an empty holster. His mind raced; the figure was getting closer.

"_He's raising his gun, bub! Do something..." _Aleutian's mouth fell from his smooth snout. He couldn't say the same for the Aleutian he was trembling at seeing with his wide eyes, tracing his long scars over his withering, aghast face.

The pistol became leveled, his finger gently feeling over the trigger–

A single shot sliced through the air as if it was the wind. And it flew true and slammed in the monster's head that Emi-La felt in her heart that she was hunting for. The hat was kicked off; his body falling to the ground jaggedly...completely soulless. Never again to raise it's pistol at her Guardian!

Stepping away from the open door, Emi-La stomped scathingly towards the body, finding her left hand unscrewing the silencer from the barrel of the pistol as her feet quickened in her passion. Three steps away she felt her face twisting into a fiery anger, charged by her love within her heart. Wirth a following step she barred her teeth. And with the last that took her right on top of the monster in black, she screamed as loud as she could, pulling the trigger in rapid succession which mixed with her distorted cry. The body flailed over and over, every stroke of her finger bringing satisfaction to the torture she felt she was unleashing on the thing that took her lover away. She never counted the shots, only stopping when the slide snapped back and never closed. For a moment she stared unmoved at the dead corpse at her feet. But a breath had turned her passionate face back to the car.

Aleutian had never moved from his frozen state, his body quivering at what he had just witnessed; at what his mind was coming to grips with. What he just lived through–a second time. It was all a dream. Why the feelings he had of doing this once before felt truer than that he couldn't gather. Why seeing Emi-La, alive and breathing, was tearing him up inside. Why he now wanted to break down and run to her.

And that she could see, letting the pistol fall from her hand and pounding the pavement in a fierce run that when Aleutian stepped out from beside the car, she nearly toppled him to the ground as her arms wrapped around his chest.

"I heard you!" she cried into his covered birthright. "I heard you, and I love you so much, Aleutian!"

His tears were streaming down his face like the rain. "And why haunt me, Emee," he said in a broken voice.

Her streaming eyes met his. "For you, my love. For you to come back to me...to come back to your family." Burrying her head back to his chest, letting her cheeks be pressed towards his heart as she held him tighter. And to her spiritual happiness, the Aleutian that laid on the street was gone; disappeared from existence. And what she knew was his.

"It's over, Aleutian. It's over for your sake. Our sake!"

The tremble in his protest brought her face to his.

"And if it means I lose you?..." he whimpered under sagging eyes.

"You never will," she whispered, smiling.

"I can't take it, Emi-La...I can't take it with you being away from my arms..."

A guiding finger to his lips hushed him. And with the tears streaming from his face she whipped them away from his muzzle. And in turn the appearing lines of his blemishes appeared in the same stroke. She wanted to stand back but she forced herself to stay, only blinking to force away the pain she inflicted just by her caring hand retracing his scars. But with her eyes refocusing, the blue shirt was gone, the holster nowhere to be found, his pants and suede shoes missing from his body. In their stead, his tan and green, bolt laced high-tops. His white gloves with the sharp knuckles spearing out of them firmly around his hands, caressing her body. His bare chest, his white birthmark glowing bright however with the scar slashing across it. Nonetheless–

"...my Guardian."

A gentle kiss to his lips. "I promise we will meet again. I promise you."

Aleutian fought for words, but he could not come to terms to speak. He just kept holding her.

The textures to the city were fading. Lights that made the city famous for it's backdrop twinkled out of existence. The car was gone...only blackness and the two soul-equals standing in an empty void, holding each other and never caring what was going on around them.

"I'm sorry Aleutian," she softly cried into his chest.

"Don't be, Emee. I am the one who is sorry for what I did. I'm the one who should have–"

"You have listened, Aleutian. You've listened to your heart all along, and you still do. Your destiny beats strong with it and it is why your family is calling you. Go to them. They deserve you, for I had you long enough in this world."

He shook his welling head. "You can have me longer. I won't mind one bit."

"And why I'm sorry Aleutian, but I can't. I can't explain it, but...I want you too, but I can't."

Succumbing to her tears, she laid her head on his chest like the many times she has done before. But there was no satin sheets to keep her warm, and there was no warm sun on the beach or the bluff, or the warm air drifting the swing back and forth while her head rested on his rising chest. Her soul missed those nature comforts.

But with all this she smiled and gazed up to her protector, her lover...her Guardian.

"You're warm, Aleutian...You're warm again.

And she kissed him, her lips massaging his as she breathed...breathing into him and filling his lungs...

* * *

He gasped deeply, awakening to the twinkling of stars in the dark night. Panting, he raised up from the rocky shelf he was laying upon and took in a series of breaths that soon were exhaled under his tears. The cool air he breathed in felt warm when his air sacks were inflated, oxygenating his blood to something he hadn't felt go through his veins for so many dark days that had gone painfully by.

Crushing over his knees, he slammed his hands to his eyes, holding back the tears. "Thank-you, Emee...Thank-you."

A long moment he cried. It was if he was crying to get his strength to climb to his feet. When he swayed upon his shoes Aleutian marched off the rock and through the undergrowth, finding his way back to the weeping willow tree. His heart was aching for the one he knew was under it. His emotions were at full height. His eyes were soaked.

His stride meaningful.

"_Dad!"_ he heard himself shout out, still walking closer to floating tree. _"Dad!..."_ he repeated, his inner voice reflecting his passionate but whimper voice.

And Locke heard his voice. Opening his eyes he was meant with Aleutian leaning down at him, picking something off the ground. It wasn't until his eyes finally became focused from the burning fog of sleep that he saw what Aleutian was doing. He fought to smile, however his son's quiver, submissive expression vanquished his notion.

"Dad," Aleutian said, this time his tone plain, pulling his left glove tight with his right glove anchored around his hand. When he was done, he looked deep into his father's eyes and flexed his fingers and hands under the determination he held within his stance. "Father...I'm ready. I'm ready to come home."

Locke never broke the pride in his stare...but yes he did. He smiled with pride. He smiled with caring love.

"I know, son. I've been waiting."

* * *

I hoped you all enjoyed this as much as I did. This chapter was a challenge and a new game for me. How to make this all a dream but have Aleutian think he is living this as if he was eighteen again--four years back. Plus, work with Emi-La's character, put somethings in her point of view and still bring out the ultimate end to the chapter...Killing Aleutian's monster. I wanted her to do it from the get go and this chapter has long be in my head since I began this little arc of mine. 

Would like to thank my readers to the up most bottom of my heart. I promise not to fail to keep going and see this through.

Mauser


	24. Wesson's Last Stand

* * *

Greetings everyone.

Slow work day, slow night. Sorry for only being able to post this short single chapter. But the title and premises should be the deserved justice for my inaction as of late. I will try to get more done, but I'm a bit tired and have an early morning to do.

Disclaimer: I stand to gain no profit from this work and the use of other's creations in the process.

Enjoy, and please review.

* * *

**Wesson's Last Stand**

By: Mauser

* * *

The best way to pack after a short stay is not to pack heavy before leaving. Stenson had this down to a science. He could pack only the essential of things: clothes, soap, books, weapons if the place he was venturing to wasn't at all friendly, and do it all in at least two bags that he could carry with ease. Most times he would be anxious to get motivating. Most times he would be laughing at how much Lar-Na would try to pack, but say from the start that she was going to do her best to match him. She was a very typical woman in a very atypical way. And at times he would laugh at her flustered frenzy, checking-bags, rechecking bags, throwing a fit because she did forget something.

But in the dim suite that much reflected Stenson's passive glare, he felt the energy to laugh, to even smile, deplete him. It was he who was packing for Lar-Na, feeling a sincerity of hope she would find the strength to come in and correct his masculine trait of disorderly cataloging of her things. He knew he was doing it wrong, flopping things in just because they fit, and he worried that her excited stress in not finding something she needed right-then would cause her to cough, and what was becoming predictable, fall to his arms before the floor took her in his stead. But he did finally manage to smile, though. Holding her make-up kit in his hand, he wondered if the black plastic kit had ever seen the release of its packing air. For Stenson, it was the very meaning why Lar-Na was a very untypical female echidna; she hardly wore make-up unless there was a very discreet call for it which usually involved him, or showing up the other Legionnaires women at a function which demanded the fanfare of elegant dresses, pressed uniforms and cloaks, and painted application of cosmetics. But as soon as he packed it away in her black canvas bag, his smile left him.

He heard her cough in the main living room, squinting his eyes depressingly out of remorse for her. Why didn't he see this? Why didn't he order her to see _someone_ a hell of a lot sooner than now. Granted, and grateful the Albion Echidna's did take the time out of their "busy" schedule to see her, and they did find what was wrong...but it wouldn't have mattered if they found it yesterday or when she was...

"_Dying..."_ he wept in his mind. It wasn't long before his break down was of the mortal world. He fell to the floor, twisting so his back was supported by the boxed bed frame, shutting his eyes with his hands to make the room darker than it already was.

The Legionnaire in him wanted to lash-out at anything inanimate and let the walls take the brunt of his anger. All his life he has battled foes and friends alike with a realization after each victory, after each defeat, that he could still come out fighting no matter what the collateral costs were. When his chest was ripped open, it didn't phase him for it didn't kill him. When his plans failed to kill the Guardian and the rest of the bloodline of Edmund, he pressed on with the fortitude that things do go wrong and the battle was not yet over.

But now–in his weeping despair in a place of sanctuary he needed to dispense it–he felt a powerless surge that tore at his heart and made him weaker than he had every felt before. For the one battle he needed to fight just for the sake of the one who truly mattered to him was already written to be lost without so much as a flaring insult.

And for him it hurt the worst.

From his thoughts of desperation came his inner-warrior voice, gentle this time. Caring. _"Snap-to, trooper. Give her strength by showing your's. Like hell she would want to see you like this just because of her."_

And he nodded to the warrior being within him. Shakingly, he climbed back to his boots, straightened his cloak and cotton jumpsuit, and went back to putting Lar-Na's clothes away.

Emerging from the room, he cast a warm smiling stare at his blue echidna wife lounging on the sofa and admiring the streaming rain. Placing their bags at the base of the door to the outside, he walked over to her and sat on the arm-rest supporting her slumped head.

"Did I ever tell you I love the rain, Stenson?" Lar-Na asked in a quiet whisper after the silence of their stare out the window.

For a moment he let the rain tap a lullaby for him, stroking her dreads with the softest touch of his hand before he broke the glooming silence. "Yes," he smiled, "you said it was the most wonderful sight and sound you have ever heard when we left the Twilight Zone." And with his soft words, he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. "And I couldn't agree with you more, Lar-Na."

Time dripped past like the dropping water. Lar-Na found Stenson's comforting hand and held it against her chest. Then she kissed it; rolling her head on it soon after.

"You are so kind, my husband. Why, of you, to be so kind?"

His voice like a dying whisper. "Because I love you, my wife. It is what I am supposed to do for _you_."

"And what of me?" she asked, drained of strength.

"Don't ask such things," he whispered as he kissed her head once more. "There is nothing for you to prove to me. You've stood by me for the deeds I have done and there is nothing more I will ask of you than just to be my wife. It's all I want."

A gentle squeeze of his hand. A warming smile from her sweet lips. "Why are you so kind, my husband."

The reply that came to him echoed from the day he proposed to her. But now, he didn't repeat it with the same bearing he had from the past. This time, he said it with compassion. This time, he felt he said it right.

"Because I want you to be my wife."

She relinquished his hand, which was painful to him. He wanted the moment to trail on until the closing night fell upon them. But the signal he felt with his hand becoming free told him time was a precious commodity such as her. Such as their mission to rescue others. Life, he fathomed grandly after rising up from the sofa, was his new vendetta in life; to save it. The brute Legionnaire he felt slipping away was replaced by a guilty conscious, his wife's beauty helping to strengthen the feeling.

Kind. Her words struck him violently that paled in comparison to the acts of violence he wanted to inflict on the Bloodline of Edmund. But what drove him to conceive those plans? And why now to reflect on them with the disgust that was rising from the his stomach for planning them? Was it spite? Or was it acting on a sense of duty rather than right or wrong? To kill a whole family just to settle a feud over the wants of technology for a whole civilization now seemed so grotesque to him that shame fell across his face as he walked to the door. And with the expression came all the answers in one phrase. _"__Because you were you."_

As he opened the door to the hall, he wondered if the Guardians were of a forgiving nature. The boy with the scars on his face almost gave him a false hope about the idea. Sighing, he grabbed the two pair of bags and sat them outside where Petty Officer Trent was waiting.

"Afternoon–well, almost evening, Captain," Trent said, correcting himself while checking his watch. "The _Hawking_ is prepared to get underway, sir."

"That's fine," came the stout reply, "how was your stay, Petty Officer?" Stenson couldn't wait for the answer.

"Comfortable, Captain. And you? I saw the session on T.V. while getting my peacoat from the cleaners."

"Is that all you did while in Albion?" Stenson asked mockingly, noticing the Petty Officer's peacoat was freshly pressed and clean.

"Oh, not all, sir. Did a sailor's tour of some pubs, caught a movie, and talked with some girls. I imagine you two were just in love with the technology here?"

Stenson shook his head irritably. "Forgive me, I'm not in the mood to joke around, Trent."

"Hmm, pity. And I was ready to hear a new spiel about the wonders of technology."

A glowering look. "_Trent_..."

It was enough to silence the Petty Officer.

Throwing the last two bags out the door, which Trent retrieved, Stenson pressed to the tasks at hand. "Is Ell-Tee back with Wesson from the forest?"

"Ah...no, sir," came the discomforting answer that brought Stenson's head up in an instant. The hard questioning look sent a phantom shiver down Trent's spine. "I haven't seen them all day or at the ship, Captain. Were they supposed to help or something?"

"No, Petty Officer, they were supposed to escort Rob-O and his band back to Deer Wood and get ready to set sail." Stenson grumbled when he peered back in to the room and glanced at the clock. "I sent Ell-Tee to find him two hours ago."

Trent rose his hands up in defense. "I heard no such order, sir."

"And none was given to you, Petty Officer. You've seen Corporal Vickers?"

"No, sir."

"Why our _my_ people AWOL and you're here ready to go?" Stenson asked, embittered.

Trent stepped back from the disorganized question. "Sir, I don't know."

"Well find out, _Petty Officer_, and report back to me when–"

The_ding_ of the elevator door was deafening over his own voice. The blue clad of Craig and Oscar was louder than Vicker's black robe. Their authoritative swagger was impressive, however, it channeled a troubling feeling through Stenson's body so that he stood rigid at attention to address the upcoming bad news.

"Field Marshal, we have a situation!" barked Craig, Vickers' eyes and face cowing at the sound of his words.

"What you do, _Corporal_?" Stenson demanded, his voice beating through the hallway.

Craig never gave Vickers the air to respond. "I need you to come with me, now, to the hospital. It involves your Sergeant and Lieutenant!"

Stenson's eyes glared frigid around the three, seeking for calmness within himself to ask the bothering questions. "Vickers', what's going on?"

"I..." Vickers' stammered at first before swallowing his fear. "They never came to the supply-room to get Rob-O. I figured something was up the way Wesson and Ell-Tee have been acting so we went to ask around."

Oscar cut in quickly. "Then we got a call that a disturbance was happening at the hospital–"

"Let's go," Stenson growled unevenly. "Lar-Na..."

She was already standing beside him. "I'm going with, Stenson."

He wasn't going to argue with her renewed strength in her voice nor in her stance. After the surprise of her presence died, he looked to Craig with an affirming nod. "Let's go."

* * *

Ell-Tee had never seen this much determination in Wesson before.

Fire was burning in both of his eyes. Even the cybernetic eye took on a fierce character of its own. Wesson was posed like a hurt animal cornered in a cage, wanting freedom. His weapon, gladly, wasn't his pistol that was still holstered on his left hip, but a spare intravenous stand cocked back in his right robotic hand, his left out in defense from a fast strike that Ell-Tee didn't have the heart to give. He bounced with every quickened breath he took, forging something that the seasoned Lieutenant saw as being scared, unsure if what he was doing was really betrayal to duty and honor. Secretively, Ell-Tee felt Wesson's defiance was just. Outwardly, he was ready for an impending fight that he hoped would never come.

He liked Wesson too much to hurt him more.

"Just put it down, Sergeant," he managed to repeat. The plea had been going on for almost an hour after finding him. Behind the posed Legionnaire was Ames and Car-Le, holding each other at the foot of Nata-Le's bed, who was showing the signs of coming around.

"Not until you leave!" came Wesson's hoarse voice in a yell.

"Please, son, do as he says. You're frightening others," said Ames, holding his terrified wife close.

"No!" snapped Wesson, keeping his trained eyes on Ell-Tee. "As soon as I do, he's going to take me away."

"No one's taking you away, Sergeant," Ell-Tee pleaded, shifting himself around the room to keep being a moving target. It really didn't matter; Wesson was too good of a shot. "Listen, Wesson, the Field Marshal just wants you to take Rob-O back to Deer Wood, and you can come back to her before we leave."

But Ell-Tee had a deep down feeling that it wasn't what Wesson really wanted. _"Damn birds and the bees!"_

The repeated reply was filled with venom this time. "I'm–not–going!"

"You know what," Ell-Tee festered, "suit yourself. I can wait all day and all night until you tire, _Sergeant_!"

Wesson clinched his teeth tighter. "It isn't going to matter!"

A shift in Ell-Tee's sight brought a new weapon to the stand-off. "It maybe for her."

He didn't have to look far over his shoulder. Nata-Le's eyes were on him, looking to him painfully, scared. Wesson was immovable. Stunned. Feeling shame wash over him at what he had done.

The betrayal in Wesson's posture was an offering for Ell-Tee to seize the moment in the Sergeant's lapse in defense and he began to move in to take him down. He didn't get far, starting with stepping back when his lone step was caught by Wesson's cybernetic eye, in which he reestablished his footing and almost swung the silver stand in his hand. It was all the motivation Ell-Tee needed to back down.

"Come on, Sergeant. Give it a rest. You think this is solving anything. I mean look at her...do you really want to scare her like this? Her family too?" Ell-Tee offered with raised hands as a plea.

Nothing of response. Just the same heavy breathing. The same clinched, betraying face.

"What am I to tell Stenson, huh?"

"Nothing," came the Field Marshal's booming voice. "He can tell it to me directly."

Stenson slipped into the room, his aura of bearing presiding loudly in his presence. His hard stare burned a hole through Wesson, but instead of making him falter to obedience, the Sergeant furthered his combative pose and matched Stenson's face with his.

Ell-Tee stepped to the right of the door, giving the Field Marshal a berth of command and action if need be. "He won't follow orders, sir."

"And why not?" Stenson asked evenly.

"I'm not going, Field Marshal!" Wesson managed to reply.

A shake of the head. "I _need_ you, Sergeant Wesson. Rob-O needs you. The Legion needs you," Stenson reasoned. "So put the weapon down, and get yourself ready."

The harsh face wasn't promising. "_I'm_..._not_..._going_!" Wesson replied slowly, defiantly.

"Wesson, you're the best I've got. Do you think anyone else would last around here?"

"I don't care!"

"Then what am I to do?" Stenson asked as a plea.

Stepping back a pace, Wesson shifted his stare to the doorway, seeing Rob-O and Mari-An were present, huddled behind Lar-Na who wasn't impressed with any of it.

"Wesson?..."

The scared voice of Nata-Le called to his senses and brought his stunned eyes to hers. She tried to get up from the bed, throwing the sheets off her gowned body, but almost tumbling off the side when she tried to use her cybernetic arm for the first time. She regained her balance, barley, causing Stenson to step forward.

It almost got him a lashing from Wesson, the Sergeant ready to swing the stand across the ten foot void to strike the Field Marshal. But he hesitated; finding it hard to decide weather to drop the stand or hold his position and continue in his endeavor to hit Stenson. And in turn, his breathing slowed, his eyes softened.

"Put it down, Wesson."

Stenson's voice of reason sparked his own natural voice within him. It was loud and clear; he didn't want to hurt the Field Marshal. And thus he dropped the stand, the metal clatter becoming the sound of defeat.

He kept breathing hard but not as heavy, his body slumped over his anchored stance. "I'm not leaving!"

Lar-Na's past voice echoed over his mentally. It caused Stenson to look to her at the door and to see if she was saying it now in her eyes.She was.

"_Make him choose..."_

"Is this what you want?" he asked evenly, turning back to Wesson.

A nod over his charged face was all Wesson gave for a reply.

Stenson looked at him with studying eyes, seeing Wesson was rigid in his commitment. "And the Legion?"

He slowly shook his head with defiant eyes. "Is that what's keeping me from her?"

"I never said that, Wesson," Stenson interjected nonchalantly.

"I know..." –he reached up with his robotic hand and searched for one of his cybernetic locks on the right side of his head– "But it _is_ what's keeping me from her, isn't it? My devotion to them."

Stenson's head tilted under a grave suspicion that ripped at his very soul. "Don't!"

Wesson's eyes said it all.

"It doesn't have to be this way," Stenson craved, lurching forward.

Wesson didn't let him get any further. Gripping his replacement lock in which he sacrificed his natural for in the name of technology, he gave Nata-Le a passionate look before facing his resolved face to his Field Marshal.

He then took a deep pull of air.

And with his cybernetic hand, he jerked at his lock, holding his neck and head stiff as the force was trying to pull him back. The tugging tension came first as an irritation, but not satisfied with the feeling he was waiting for, he pulled harder. With it, the beginnings of a stabbing pain, intensifying until it burned, ached, causing an irritable shooting anguish that forced every molecule of air from his lungs as a scream. Warmness of his blood soon lapped at his mechanical hand, feeling it through the glove and his simulated nerve endings, commanding him to crush the lock as he bit down with another hard tug. He heard the muffled rips of skin and arteries coming undone through his head. The snapping of wires was nothing more than a mere forthought The pain was immense. The blood drooled in abundance.

But he didn't care.

The strand became loose almost with a snap, his lock coming away from his head with a vein being ripped apart as if it were the last chain to his imprisonment. And to Stenson and everyone else's surprise, he didn't scream. He just stood there, breathing in the sterile air of the hospital room as he the feeling of his blood washed down his head and over his back through the collar of his jacket.

And all of a sudden he took a step forward, swaying under the pain when he took another, reaching almost toe to toe with the saddened Field Marshal as he held his pulled metallic and blood stained lock out to him.

"You tell...Kommissar," –he shunted a moan under his gristled voice– "You tell Kommissar, that she can...find me here...and I'd rather die than..._ehhh_...leave_my equal's_ side."

With reluctance, Stenson took the lock, feeling the residual warmth around it. "I will, Wesson," he said under a whisper.

A smile, his sway becoming more pronounced. "That's Sergeant Wesson..."

And before he could think, Stenson stabbed forward and caught Wesson before he fell to the floor, holding him in his arms and supporting him under what he felt were tears coming across his face. "Nurse...I need a nurse!"

Lar-Na filed through the door, followed by Ell-Tee, finding themselves gathering around Wesson and helping Stenson hold him from the floor. She took his left arm, his strong side which was weak, and followed his shaking body with her comforting stare. But her gaze strayed from him, feeling hurtful, watchful eyes falling on them. And when she looked, she witnessed Nata-Le leaping from the bed, caring not if she lost her balance and scrambled to Wesson's side. Lar-Na felt her place leave from within her, the caring she had felt for Wesson being passed on.

And she let Nata-Le have his side, working feverishly to get her arm to follow her commands to ease him up.

She succeeded.

"You have a brave and committed equal, Nata-Le," Lar-Na whispered into her ear.

"I know..."

Stenson heard it and smiled warmly, Ell-Tee finding a sponge on a stand beside him as he heard the footstep of a medical team coming down the hall, and dappled it at Wesson's bleeding, severed lock. The touch was enough to make Wesson wince, however he brought his quivering face up to Stenson's, holding on to his consciousness.

"Field Marshal?..."

"Don't say a thing, Wesson. You did enough of that. Your love has done that for you."

His chattering lips perched for a second, before he opened them. "Win for me..." came his struggling voice.

And his head slumped into Stenson's chest, his consciousness overcome from pain.

They all held him tighter, holding him as Stenson leaned down over his head...and kissed him there.

"I will."

* * *

Like I said, it's a bit short, but I figured I give you all a nice change in pace from the long chapters I have given you. "Killing Monsters" came in a whooping 12,000 words. This is about 3,600 words. It's not that I had nothing to think about. Far from it: this chapter has been a standing order to do and show with as much energy as I can throw about. I hoped I succeeded.

Here my creativity spawned how a Legionnaire would have to resign his post with the Dark Legion, and sever his belief of technocracy. It's a bit harsh, but so is the Legion. Hope I did it right.

Thanks again, I promise to put more effort into my editing and postings.

* * *


	25. The Rising of Fates

* * *

Good evening to all. 

At last another update and a day after the last one. First to say is: I thank RadRed08 and Sara for y'alls' reviews. By the way Sara, it's spelled interesting. Don't fret, I had the exact same problem when I began "really" writing. But I come now as an example that practice and experience amends and sharpens talents and skills.

Thus we come to another short chapter but with a lot of scenes to make up for the daft length. In all honesty, I look at this as not one of my better chapters as I felt it was thrown together to get the storyline moving some. But I will make up for it in the coming chapters. The title to this chapter came hard for the short time I allowed myself to dwell on it. It takes place in the morning and had that as the main focal point in my consideration. I hope it is true to form to follow.

Disclaimer: Here we are again. I stand to go nothing in the value of monotary profit from the use of the other creators original characters. Hey, I'm getting better at wording this.

Thanks again, and do enjoy!

* * *

**The Rising of Fates  
**

By: Mauser

* * *

Three digital rings was all it took to wake St. John from his hard sleep on his stomach. But it was Hershey who tossed around in the bed to answer it. 

"Yes?...Oh hi Sally...Yes...yes, he's right here." She shoved the cordless phone at Geoffrey's drowsy head. "It's Sally, Geoff. She doesn't sound to thrilled."

He grumbled his irritation at the coming earful as he took the phone. "Hello, your highness."

"Geoffrey," came Sally's tight voice, "Sonic, Antoine and Knuckles haven't come back yet."

"What?"

"Their_boogie_ isn't at the airbase, and Nicole hasn't received any messages. What's going on?"

The urgency in Sally's voice caused Geoffrey to roll over and rise up on the backboard of his and Hershey's bed. "Honestly, Princess, I can't say. Anything come over the airwaves last night?"

"No. Not a peep all night. And that's coming from Chuck."

Rubbing his face, St. John attempted to sigh his drowsiness away. "Maybe we can send Tails' out with Juile-Su and some of the Chaotix–"

"We can't, Geoff–the Prowers haven't returned either. Anything from them before you turned in?"

"Nothing, 'luv," he groaned slightly. "Look," –he turned to the red numbers on the digital clock, "give me thirty and I'll be at H.Q."

The static of Sally's sigh was comforting. "Alright. C'ya then."

"Good bye, Your Highness."

Pushing the talk button that cut the line, Geoffrey rolled over to his left and reached over Hershey and replaced the phone on the charger. Her back was to him, pretending she was asleep. The seasoned agent of His Majesty's Secret Service knew better. "Hershey, 'luv." No response. "Hey," he said, yawning, rubbing her furry shoulder.

She pounced on the touch, rolling over on her back, grabbing Geoffrey's exposed hand and continued over until she trapped him under her spread hips. Her satin gown covered her well, but she tickled him with her bushy tail at his toes. "I heard, hansom," she grinned playfully. "What do you want to eat?" she asked, seeing the time was almost seven in the morning.

He hated doing it, but he had to turn her off. "I'm afraid cold cereal, 'luv."

Hershey tapped his chest lightly, doing her best to lighten him up. "Why is that Knuckles wakes up with Julie-Su every morning while I have to either roll over to an empty bed or wait for you at night?"

He chuckled with a scoff. "I'd go talk to her about that. Right now she's the one waking up in an empty bed." Hershey's displeasing look wasn't enough. "Listen, we aren't the only ones with this mixed up sleep pattern."

"So when do I get you on my own?"

Another chuckle, another displeasing look in return. "When Eggman either quits, chokes on a chicken bone, or Sally puts me on the shelf. Neither I see happening for awhile."

Hershey leaned into him, purring in his ear before shifting her lips to his and kissing him. "Maybe I should shelf you."

He returned her light kiss with his, rubbing her head between her ears which intensified her purr. "I'm going to get yelled at today."

A hard love tap and a smug face ended Hershey's entrapment. "There are day's, _Geoffrey_."

"Um...actually mornings, 'luv."

* * *

Two light taps, wood meeting wood, aroused Knuckles. At first when he peeled his eyelids back, he saw a blurry shadow hanging over him. Before he became aware of where he had slumbered, it came to him in the heartbeat it took him to shoot up from the bunk.

"Hey, easy lad. You're still safe."

Knuckles shook his head, looking at his surroundings and finding almost all the bunks around him were empty. Only that of Sonic at the left rear of the hut and Antoine directly at the foot of his were occupied, as the aged leopard hunched over a weathered ash cane eyed Knuckles in a very unsettling, peculiar manner.

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple?"

Knuckles quizzical expression at Lemaen's riddle was enough to kill the pensive stare of the leopard. "I don't get what your saying?"

Lemaens smiled disappointedly, steadying himself over his cane as he diligently collapsed himself to sit at the edge of Knuckle's bunk. From the lack of overcasting shadows he could see the cracks of the wall, and that of a clock, the echidna only guessed it was late morning, maybe mid. But his real attention went back to Lemaens.

"It's a riddle my mother told me long ago, Knuckles...is it?"

"Yea. Some just call me Knux."

The leopard nodded cordially with a tightened cheek. "I'm sorry I hovered over you like that, but you seem to remind me of someone I used to know."

"Really?"

A drifting smile. "Yes, _used_ to know. Was hoping you might have been him, but it's rather hard for the dead to come back."

Knuckles laughed lightly while rolling his head at the statement. "I'd take you up on that."

Lemaens let it go, gazing around the room and finding entertainment with Sonic's snoring. "Does he sleep that loud? Not good to stay covert, you know. Him and all that racket."

A menacing grin protruded from the Guardian's face. "Want me to kick him up?"

"Nah, don't trouble yourself. Last thing we need is a little game in here to arouse suspicion from the outside."

"Yea, where is everyone?" Knuckles asked, looking around once more.

"Morning exercise. Morning routine. All rubbish if you ask me, though, it is a great way to send out messages." Lemaens' friendly stare drifted troubling around the hut, as if looking at the outside's going-ons and could see them clearly. "But we normally don't do it this late in the morning. Usually we are on our way–I should say they are on their way–to the oilfields and the new fueling-port. I stay behind and mange things while keeping the huts tighty."

Knuckles lifted himself up and swung his feet over the side, his shoes still covering his feet. "How did you get captured?"

"Oh..." Lemaens sighed patiently, "I trusted someone, and they trusted the wrong someone. And so I'm here, running my _own_ front of the war. Mostly to live."

"I'd say your doing a bang-up job with that."

"Now," retorted the leopard, watching Knuckles' glowering face diminish, "like I said, we weren't strong enough, and we may, perhaps, still not be strong enough to get out. In my opinion, it's going to depend on how fast your friends get here and how many bots we can smash. It _is_ going to have to be done today. They haven't sent a worker party out and that's got a few of us worried. Your Echidnian friend too, mind you."

Knuckles stood up and stretched his back with his arms raised high up. His fur was wet, soaked from sweating most of the hot night. And lastly, with his brain fully functional, he was hungry. "Got anymore of the sunflower slop they feed you?"

"Now there you go insulting my cooking," Lemaens replied, damaged.

The Guardian's hands came up disarmingly. "Yo, hey, I didn't know it was your's."

"Actually, it's a recipe a friend once gave me. She could cook like you wouldn't believe, but I'm afraid I'm lacking in certain_ingredients_ to bring out the full effect of the bread. Sugar for one."

"You have a lot of friends," Knuckles pointed out.

Lemaens' stare went vacant with his voice, his head lowered to his knees where his cane was standing between. "I have a lot of dead friends, the girl who gave me the recipe included. My world of fighting, Knuckles, is a very dangerous realm. One minute your checking up on a fellow spy, the next your limping into captivity–me being luckier than my friends." His look lapsed into a simple depression. "...so many. Why I said you reminded me of someone I knew. This old mind of mine is a bit clingy."

Knuckles gave a nod for comfort. "I know what you mean."

"I certainly hope so...I need the sympathy. Now," he stated, "about breakfast. I shall fetch you your liking of either sunflower bread or sunflower porridge. Sorry, no milk or eggs."

Knuckles gave a carefree smile that he knew Lemaens deserved. He knew what it was like to lose friends. "The bread will be fine."

"Fantastic, I shall return with more for your friends."

And the proper English leopard departed, thumping the brass end of his cane on the floor as he limped along out the door, shutting it hard to make sure it was locked. Knuckles stretched once more and walked over to Sonic, the hedgehog still snoring away. It was too enticing. He cocked his right foot back at the knee and let it fly, his toes landing on Sonic's right side and launching him up a good six inches before he came crashing down in a fury of blue and tan flailing limbs.

"Hey, what the..." Sonic caught Knuckles mirthful grin from his devious deed. "Ah jeez, Red! You could've just shook me, y'know!" Sonic hissed out. He still knew where he was.

"I'm sorry, Blue. I just..." Knuckles shrugged his shoulders.

"Yea, couldn't resist," Sonic sneered. "So what's up?"

"Lemaens is grabbing food–"

"I'd rather starve."

"Hey, would you just shut-up, Sonic. Lemaens is grabbing us food, and from what he told me, things aren't great at the moment."

A mocking glance around the room with a "duh" expression was all Sonic could manage without getting decked again from Knuckles.

"Look, he says they haven't gone out today, and from what they said yesterday, we could be in a real tight spot."

"Which means," Sonic said, rolling over towards Antoine down the line of bunks on his side of the hut. "Hey 'Twan?"

"_Oiu Monsieur_," came the dreary coyote's French voice.

"We might need to make a call soon. So get your tail up like the rest of us."

'Twan's back laid motionless, Knuckles taking it as a sign of indifference. "We need to make sure we can call out and get them here fast before the action starts."

"Way ahead of 'ya, Knux. We'll talk with Lemaens when he gets back. I'm starved–"

The door flung open wide with Lemaens rushing in as fast as he could manage with his arms full and his cane thumping loudly on the floor. Knuckles was about to rush to help, but the leopard motioned with his head not to as he back-kicked the door closed. He desperately made his way to the trio, Antoine standing to as fast as he could.

"It's gone from bad to worse, I'm afraid," said the leopard, handing out the bread that was still steaming hot, "I talked with Mikhail while butting in line and he said they've ordered a headcount at five in the afternoon. And they are not sending us out at all today."

"What time is it now?" Sonic asked quickly.

"It's about ten, one of our ladies has a working pocket watch."

"Can you hide us for that long?" Knuckles inquired hastily, worried.

"_We_ can try. Might have to shuffle you around the huts. Better luck at the school house. They haven't taken kindly to our children here, and the mothers are ready to take it out on the bots for it."

"So we've heard," Knuckles replied firmly.

"When do we make our call?"

"An hour at the most before the call. A half hour would be better, but it depends on how fast you can get a ship that can hold about fifty."

Sonic's stare wasn't one of comfort. "You're looking at two with the ship I have in mind."

"Well make it two, but if they get sniffy, it's going to be a bit tense around here."

"We can deal with tense," Knuckles grinned. "We like pressure."

* * *

Amadeus lightly walked through the hall and wandered into the kitchen, his uniform hanging in the closet of the guest room he and Merlin were sharing, and wearing one of Darian's white shirts that fell past the fox's knees. He was pleasantly surprised at seeing a pair of red and white shoes protruding from under the kitchen sink along with two yellow bushy, white tipped tails. Stepping closer to the opened cabinet doors, he heard a childish grunt enforce the jerk he saw come from the his son's struggling body.

"What are you doing, Miles?" he asked cheerfully.

Tails pushed himself from under the sink, a quarter inch wrench in hand and his white hair on the roof of his head flustered from work. "Morning, dad," he said brightly as the sun beaming through the window. "I'm just fixing Heather's garbage disposal. The connectors were corroded so I cleaned them off with steel-wool and I'm about finished in putting them back on. Easy task."

Amadeus smiled under his eyepatch. "I wouldn't go parading that around Darian. I have this feeling it was _his_ job and not your's."

Heather's uplifting voice filled the kitchen. "Oh, it was."

"My, good morning ma'am," greeted the fox, bowing curtly in the presence of a lady.

"Oh, please. Darian tries that just to impress me," she blushed, her jeans worn from over-washing and overuse. Her pale-yellow shirt looking the same.

"I should think as gentle_man_ like on his part as much as mine in the Mobian sense."

Her cheery red cheeks rose with a smile. "And stately too. How's your hang-over. Darian's is killing him so far. I can't even roll him out of bed to rinse his mouth out."

"He took the brunt of the bottle, my dear lady. I just helped him finish it so he wouldn't be sick in the morning."

"You talk of experience."

Amadeus knew Tails was waiting for the reply of his golden years, but he was about to disappoint his son with the real truth. "No, ma'am. I just watched others and learned from _their_ mistakes."

Heather's face perched pensively. "Hmm...funny _you_ should say that."

Amadeus took it at face value, knowing full well what the mistakes were of the late and current royal family. "Yes, funny that."

Tails shot up from the floor, wrench still in hand and searched out the switch to the disposal unit. With a groaning, gurgling sound the machine came to life as the two-tailed fox almost jumped in joy for his fruit bearing fix. "Done! Anything else, Heather."

"That's ma'am, son. You know better to use your manners, I hope."

"No, it's okay. He isn't in trouble. Come to think of it Tails, I have a long list, but we have things to do today." She looked into Amadeus eyes, showing apprehension. "Darian wants to take you out to garden this morning, possibly afternoon at this rate. The flowers are due."

"I haven't picked any for a long time."

She smiled once more, but still showing a sign of sadness. "You won't need to pick them sir." Shifting back to the hallway, she called out to her daughter. "Amber, what do you want to eat honey?"

"Eggs and toast!" came the blonde little girl's reply.

"And you two?" she asked after turning back.

"The same, ma'am. Make it simple," Amadeus said somberly to the Overlander woman.

"As you wish."

Stepping back into his room, Amadeus changed into his blue tunic, wiped his boots clean, and checked himself in the mirror. Heather took great care of his uniform the night before he turned in. She had a fine touch with clothing, he noticed. Not a stray fiber sticking out from any seam or cuff. He also noted the firm press, wondering if she had done the same for Darian when he was fighting the Great War against him. It was a humbling thought; staying as a guest in a house of a former enemy, being treated by the man's wife like a king, and dining with his daughter. _"I will return the favor, friend. You are a friend._" he mused in the mirror to himself.

Looking at Merlin before he exited the room, he sighed for the first time of the new day. He was awakened by him after a muffled shout. A dream, Amadeus gathered, and from the way Merlin wasn't waking up now, he knew it took him awhile to come down from it, to fall back asleep. His brother's haunting face, his scouring eyes and trembling hands, they were signs of something that he should worry about for his brother's sake. Possibly even Knothole's if the nightmares really involved Aleutian.

Walking back towards the kitchen, he was met with the garbage disposal being run through it's paces with the repeated flip of the switch. Stepping through the open frame, he saw Darian working the wall switch with his good hand, his injured freshly wrapped with a white dressing hanging limply at his side, not believing he was hearing the beastly sound from the pit of his sink.

"Morning, sir."

"Huh," Darian said, the Overlander turning over his left shoulder as he leaned up against the counter. He was dressed in the Overlander fashion, a pair of light green, thick battle trousers that looked to have been well kept, and a matching open fronted jacket and shirt for breathing in the summer air. Where the Overlander's lived in the north part of the mainland, which was mostly cold, Darian's attire reflected his former habitat. Just being in the mere presence of the somewhat bulk clothing made Amadeus hold back his fighting spirit. Once upon a time, being this close to an Overlander was a juicy proposition to take to the bank with a blade. "Oh, morning, Prower. Just admiring your son's skill."

"That he has, Darian."

A stiff smile before he turned to his wife. "Honey, could you fix up two apple juices for me and Amadeus, please?"

"Well, since you said please," she said, pulling the door to the old-modeled fridge and taking a flask of juice out. Once she poured into a twin set of glasses, she handed them to Darian who in turned handed one to Amadeus.

"Please, come with me to the living room. I have questions."

"And so do I," the General countered.

He took the same spot on the sofa as the night before, Darian the same recliner chair, though his hand was massaging his head from the apparent hangover Heather had warned him about. He took a sip and sat the glass down on the table-stand beside him, then looked to Amadeus with heavy eyes, rubbing the elbow to his injured hand nervously.

"Now that I have courage. Tell me of Aleutian. How is he? How's his scars?"

Amadeus bit his lower lip in musing, fighting for the words he wanted to use to draw out his own answers. "The scares reflect much of himself. He's very troubled."

"You can say that again," Darian replied harshly.

"Well, when I first met him was actually by the King's side. Elias, you know he's acting–"

"Acting king, yes I know. Amazing we didn't kill him at the start."

"A miracle, Darian, and two if you count what happened over a week ago."

"Oh..."

Amadeus held a pregnant pause as he took a swig from his glass. There must have been a orchard near for the juice was very fresh. "Aleutian happens to be a lost friend to Elias. From what his Majesty has told me, they were playmates while the Guardian's took care of him on the Floating Island...or Angel Island now. But, you see, on the hill of Mathias' house–you've been there, right?" Darian nodded, intently listening. "Our troubled Guardian embraced his Majesty...saying to him he wish he were dead.

"And there's something I don't get about all this, Darian," Amadeus added.

"Go on," replied the Overlander, still intently listening.

"He helped save his own people, okay, but he wished he were _dead_? Said it right into Elias' ear. What person, especially of his stature, would wish he were dead after doing something so honorable and courageous, and doing it alongside his brother?" Amadeus waited for the response to his lightly loaded question.

But Darian didn't answer him right-away, nor directly.

"You're seeking his help, right?" came the Overlander's response.

"Yes, of course. Every little bit helps."

"Well," Darian sighed, coming to grips of how he was going to put this, "I think the big reason why is because he 'thinks' he murdered three of the co-conspirators who are the reason he is without a wife and child."

"_Murdered_?" Amadeus put forth, stunned.

"So he thinks. I say he cleansed the world, but I don't go saying that in front of him nor his lop eared friend. Especially the lop."

"Lop? Who's the lop?"

"I can't say for sure. He just popped into my house after I got home and was getting Heather and Amber ready to bug out before a Light Coronel named Richfield put two and two together and came up with one missing Overlander."

Amadeus need not ask for Darian knew the next question. "Richfield used to command a detachment of light regular troops with the Overlander Army. It so happened that it wasn't his dream post and with his age running to the end of his prime and the war almost over, he wasn't a very happy camper with the outcomes. Till the day he died, he hated you and Max's family with a passion, plus any other Mobian he saw.

"But he could cope with them in the pursuit of his goals."

"I've heard of _him_," Amadeus said cautiously as it were, sipping at his glass. "Knew of some of his failed endeavors, but only through the hear-say of after action reports."

"They weren't hear-say, they were true. Many of us did our best not to go to war with that man. He should've stayed as a low lying Lieutenant and took his orders like the rest of us non-coms."

"But he stayed after the _war_?"

"Figure it out, Prower," Darian frowned, taking his second sip from his glass. "Bitter, defeated by you, plus looked down upon by his superiors and subordinates."

"Sounds to me like someone out to prove something other than himself."

"Bingo," Darian snapped, "and along came one of us. Julian. Remember him?"

Amadeus' face turned to malice. "How can I not!"

"Well, the self proclaimed Robotnick made a deal through his nephew, Snively. Snively pulled all the strings for Richfield: money, positions of key supplies, even this place and our training compound which nothing of it remains now." He raised his glass to hold Amadeus' inquires. "And he gave us a contact and so called 'operative.'"

"_Aleutian_?" Amadeus jumped hurriedly.

"No, it wasn't him," Darian calmly replied. "But I do wonder if the badger came from the same line of training from the same master. The way he talked, the way he plotted and planned–he resembled Aleutian and Emi-La in his tactics and mannerisms." He sat back, almost like surrendering to tiredness. "But his motives were totally different."

"Got a name? We can find him if we must?"

"Markus the Badger, and I haven't seen him since I left the training compound. I had to because of him."

"And Robotnick was behind all this?"

"A good portion of it, but not all. He shelled out the money, Snively saw where the use went. You see, actually the way _I_ see it, General: Snively had other plans that his uncle wasn't to keen on. Possibly the destruction of him. Now don't quote me, and don't take this as the written truth, but some of the things going on behind the currents from us was mostly set up by him and not his uncle.

"I hate to say it but Snively ended up winning over everyone. Our hero and our villain; all in the same short body."

* * *

His bed was neat.

Surprisingly he slept soundlessly through the night to keep it that way. Rubbing his long nose, he opened his eyes to the bright sunlight filling his room broadly through the ceiling high window. The glimmering black screens of his computer was like food for his waking mind, enticing him with a richness that he imagined as morning breakfast, calling to him to come away from the bed.

To do his work.

For it was his day...it was Snively's day once more.

* * *

And we hear the arpageo of the kettle drums at the end. Actually a dark minor chord from a string section in my head. Sad to say, again, it will be another time before I return with more. Aleutian is next, the morning after his re-touch and renewed commitments. But with all new perservernces, they don't come fast, the don't come easy, and Aleutian is still fighting within himself if this what he "really" wants to do. And the Prowers get to know more of the truth. 

Last notes about this chapter. I had to be very tight-lipped of how much I wanted to expose about the battle and the cause of Emi-La's death. See, I aim to write that whole story in it's entirity and only have the explanation of it now only as a hint.

So again, please review. It keeps me strong and committed. Also rip this chapter apart if you see so fit. Also tell me how my wordings and sentence structures are coming along. Thanks.

And "Killing Monsters" has been resubmitted as an edited version. So enjoy it again.

* * *


	26. The Path to Warmth

* * *

Greetings all. Late entry, and still working on more. Unfortenatly, but fortenatly, other projects have detoured my energy from this, but don't fret, I have a chapter in the works and more to follow. Plus additional entries to keep everyone, including me, satisfied. Must thank Sara once more for your gracious review. Also must thank the followers I have of this long epic.

I start with Aleutian's journal entry, something we haven't seen in awhile, and try to get him started off with his "retraining." He is about to find out, it's not all that easy as it feels.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the original characters of the arc, nor do I stand to gain any profit.

Enjoy.

* * *

**The Path to Warmth**

By: Mauser

* * *

_Dear Journal..._

One couldn't balm him. Being back in the place were he found the treasure of love, seeking it again with his father, and just for his father, writers' block was bound to happen.

Aleutian sat with his jacket laying on his lap, his blue journal covering the_Freelanders_ banner along with the charging griffon on the back, dabbling at a blank spot on the clean paper with his pen. There was so much he wanted to write about: meeting his father while Mathias' house burned, seeing Elias again, and who he couldn't wait to see again, the fight with Shadow, and most of all, his brother.

He took a drink from the hydropack inside his backpack, wishing the water was actually tea. He missed the bitter, sweet taste of his drink of choice. Even through his depression he found comfort with his tastebuds and a chilled glass of sweet-tea. If he had honey, he'd warm the glass or mug up, pour it in and stir. It made for a great cough suppressant if and when he caught any funk from the slums he and Emi-La had gone through.

And the thought of her felt uplifting, such as the rising sun he was facing, shining down on him through the waving trees. Yes, he still felt the pain of her being absent of body. But he felt her somehow, breathing within as he breathed. He was keeping her alive, just by him staying alive. That was something he could've wrote down.

But for some reason he didn't. Her meaning, her wants would forever remain in him and him alone. For he wasn't...he felt it. And with this he felt the block leave him with a widening smile, placing his pen on the sheet of paper and staining it with black ink.

_I'm free...Aleutian._

Closing the book, he put it away in his pack along with the trash of his morning meal, then he stood and began tensing his shoulders, pacing in the small opening of trees. Then he lifted his legs, pulling them up behind his back one at a time, holding them each for what he guessed was five maybe six seconds. And lastly his arms, wrapping one behind the other and tugging them back across his chest. The looseness he was wanting, however, didn't feel right. His back felt stiffer than a decayed board, along with the rest of his muscles some of which he never before used, told him he was _really_ out of shape.

Or maybe it was him still feeling the fight with Shadow from two days ago?

"_Either way, bub, you gotta a long way back."_

A lasting sigh drained his procrastination and with it, he took in a deep breath through his nose and exhaled it out his mouth as a blow from his lips, lowering his stance at the knees as he did. His back was the source of his discomfort during the first few seconds of his basic stance. He groaned when he wanted to laugh, rising up to arch his back some to loosen the muscles a bit more. The laugh was of his teacher's voice. _"Straight and level. How thou needs to be...thou needs to crawl straight when you are born. Aleutian...thy has been born."_

"I have been born," the Guardian repeated, closing his eyes and lowering himself once more. The smile vanished from anything meaning of seriousness. "Thou hast been reborn."

But it hurt, Aleutian concluding that he had bit off more than he could chew with Shadow. His demeanor was there, willing to retrain, willing to beat himself up so he could pound away at others for the sake of righteousness. But it hurt. And this time it was very frustrating, not knowing what hurt the worst: old wounds in his heart, or those of a physical nature. He knew which was the most damaging, realizing it now as he stood up again and punched the air with his knuckled gloves, but he wondered if the fresh pain of his stiffness would unleash his will to give up.

"_You never did with him...course he never let you either."_

"What you need is someone to push you, son."

Aleutian turned around to the south to see his father standing with Archimedes perched on his shoulder. "It's going to take more than just _that_ this time," he conceded, though he knew Locke already felt the same conclusion.

"I doubt it," Locke put in. He watched Aleutian get thrown off by the nature of the tilt of his head.

"I don't. I know what those old pains feel like, and reliving them isn't boding with me too well."

"We all have to crawl," Locke pointed out.

"I'm trying," grunted Aleutian, lowering himself at his knees again and balancing his body weight on the balls of his feet.

"You're running, not crawling, lad," Archy suggested, all four of his arms crossed. "Think back to when you met Lopper."

"Actually, he met me..."

Archimedes closed his eyes and retried his sentencing again. "Think back to when you met Lopper. How many patrols on the _Plunger_ did you undertake for that time, lad?"

Aleutian let a moment of reflection pass, feeling his upper lip with his teeth. "Um...four I think."

"And knowing Mathias the few times I met him, he had you working on everything, correct?"

"Yes," Aleutian replied, not liking what the Fire Ant was trying to point out.

Locke pushed it home. "More active in your life. Did you continue practicing the training I gave you before you left?"

Aleutian swallowed hard, releasing his combative stance to address his father. "I did," he replied dryly.

"Then let's crawl–give me your hands."

Aleutian held them out as instructed, his father dropping his bag and stepping towards him. First he felt his hands, squeezing Aleutian's palms with his thumbs, then flipping them over and feeling between the spikes at the tendons. "Your hands are still loose, but..." –he squeezed again– "...fragile. Is this from your shooting?"

"Perhaps...haven't trained much with that either."

Locke nodded. "Calcium for you when we get back to civilization." Feeling at his wrist, Locke squeezed up his son's right arm. The bulges of his biceps lacked mass, and for someone Aleutian's age, it was sad sight to see his body gone to waste. He needed to have the complexion and build of his brother. As to the difference between the two, and even Locke himself, Aleutian was shockingly thin, finding his left side far worse than his right. Edging behind him, Locke felt along his back, almost giving Aleutian a massage as he gave firm pinches to his lower back muscles–

"Hey...ow!"

Locke stopped fast and pushed his face over Aleutian's shoulder. His lower left back was tender. "What did I do?"

A musing face was his first reply for a short moment. "It's not your fault dad. You didn't know," Aleutian said in a dismissal, apologetic tone.

"Know what?"

Aleutian could see himself on the wind of his father's question: Emi-La's dying face holding his, feeling the fresh wound at his back opening up in blood, him screaming as he awoke from his dream on the _Plunger_ before Quack injecting him with a heavy dose of anaesthesia, only awaking once more to find the SWAT Bot's shrapnel pieces had been replaced with a skilled dressing. There were no scars; just the inflamed tissue that was still trying to repair itself.

"Don't worry about it, dad," Aleutian breathed.

Emotionless, Locke nodded and went back to what he was doing.

Aleutian's shoulder blades were very pronounced, almost leaving the middle of his back like a valley. When he completed going around his son, Locke's disappointed face showed what Aleutian had known all along about himself, his expression almost matching his father's. He hadn't been taking care of himself. He hadn't had the inner strength to do so.

Clasping at his son's arms once more, Locke turned them over and pressed down. "Keep me from pushing your arms down, Aleutian," he requested.

He did his best to lift his arms up and close them together, however his father's strength showed no mercy towards the lack of his. Locke was strong, almost crushing him to the ground.

"You're not a total loss, son," Locke commented after easing Aleutian back on his feet.

"Thanks, dad. At least I know who to come to for moral support."

"I'm being serious, son. It's a good thing. You have your residual strength–which is fantastic–but it's your muscle mass that we need to work on. The power we have is a gift we are born with. But a gift is nothing if we don't work at it." Locke studied Aleutian once more with his eyes, watching his son study him all the same. "Okay, let's check your speed."

Locke cocked his right hand back in fist, and hovered his left at his chest. "Block only, Aleutian...got me?"

"Yea," he confirmed quickly, staring at his father's chest and springing down into his defensive stance again..

Locke's first punch went freely at his chest, striking Aleutian hard and sending him to the ground. Needless to say, he was stunned.

And so was Locke. "You're supposed to block, Aleutian, not take it."

"I know," he said, scrambling to his feet and resetting himself, fidgety.

Again he looked to his father's chest, and again came the swing. He blocked it this time around, but Locke's spiked knuckles still dug into his chest. He didn't fall the ground this time, but the blow still took him off balance. Flustered, frustrated, and now sore, Aleutian stomped his anger at the ground and pulled away from his father.

"Don't quit, lad," said Archimedes, leaping off of Locke's shoulder and teleporting onto Aleutian's hand. "You are just getting started," he continued, looking up at the younger Guardian's blue eyes.

"It's hard, Archy. Not getting started but restarting," Aleutian reasoned.

"Then think back to your training," Locke offered, walking up beside his son. "Think back to when you and I were training. Think back to your friend Lopper. Think back to all your lessons, Aleutian." Placing his hand on his son's shoulder, Locke inched his muzzle to Aleutian's ear. "Just think of today as us picking up where we left off."

Aleutian shut his eyes at the strange feeling his father's words brought to him. "I'm trying to remember where we were."

"Son," Locke began, coming around to view Aleutian's scarred face, finding his fingers tracing the long deep gash across his muzzle. His smile was warm, comforting. "I know exactly where we left off. Not of the day you left, but of the day you stopped speaking to me. Do you remember?" Aleutian shook his head. "I do. 'Why your mother wants you to clean your room."'

Aleutian's laugh was heartfelt and joyful, sparking Locke to join with him. "So what was the purpose of my room being clean?" Aleutian said after his laughed died to a chuckle.

"That cleanliness is wellness."

There was no humor in the way Locke said it, and Aleutian breathed himself back into seriousness. His eyes faltered to the ground, reflectively. "What other lessons have I missed," he asked in a dull whisper.

"Many," Locke replied, slapping his son's shoulder. "But I still remember them."

Aleutian picked up his face. "And the important one I missed?"

Locke's smile was caring, almost strengthened by the twinkle in his eyes. "Family. Something I should have taught you long ago."

The urge to sit fell upon him, letting gravity take him to the dead leaves of the clustered woods they were wading in. "I'm listening, dad."

Aleutian's posture was a gift to Locke's somber mind. Sixteen years ago, perhaps longer, the same boy, much younger, much smaller, sat the same way before him, legs folded under him, gazing intently. When Knuckles would do the same, it almost tore Locke to pieces for it reminded him of Aleutian. The times he wanted to relinquish his pain filled heart in front of Knuckles was uncountable. But the strength to hold it in was strong, however weakening his spirt, he realized. And with Aleutian sitting down, waiting to hear his words, he felt there was an injustice about it. And with that feeling, he sat down beside him.

"Stand, Aleutian," he said evenly.

"What...why?"

"Just..." he held his hand out, "stand."

Climbing to his feet, Aleutian brushed himself off and paced in front of his father, his hands swaying at his side in question. "Okay, what?"

To go for it was the hardest question Locke had to consider. But the avenue was already laid out. And honestly, he felt he needed the lesson more than Aleutian.

"Tell me about Emi-La," Locke said under a quiet voice, his eyes gazing with compassion.

The question bewildered him visibly. Even stammering a reply during his moment of lapse was far removed. To answer all together seemed ever further in the void in his blank mind. Her face came to him, her scarf draping down her right side and adding to the beauty he so missed. But tears never came this round, just a longing sigh. Then a glance to the ground.

"You would have adored her as much as I had."

"You still do, Aleutian, as I your mother. Wyn may have her, and I cherish his fortune. But...she still is in my heart, just as Emi-La beats in yours." Locke returned to his caring smile. "But go on, how did she brighten your life."

"She didn't, she wore me out."

"_Aleutian_?"

"No, I..." Aleutian found his hand nervously scratching the back his head between his dreads. "I didn't mean it like that. She...uh...she could cook, dad. I mean she could've cooked for Elias and put his servants to shame, if he has any."

Locke's next question came as a mirth chuckle. "How did you keep the weight off?"

He felt the smile stretch his long scar. "That's where she wore me out. Last thing she wanted to see was a gut on her equal. On our time off with each other, we'd climb the stairs down to the beach, or she'd jump on my back and we glided down. We kept up with our training." A glancing nod to Locke under a wink. "We'd clean the house–which was always a blast, or I'd be down in my basement making something to improve our lives."

Locke blinked his fondness of Aleutian's cherished memories. "I would have loved to have met her, son."

His smile was still there, but fading. "It got real close, dad...real close." Turning his whole torso to Locke, Aleutian cocked his head slightly and brought his stare to his father's. "Tell me about the Brotherhood?"

Shaking his head under his drifting eyes. "Missing," he said irritable. "They are your grandfathers, several generations removed, and few have tried to keep tabs on you after Anthair said you were alive and well. You realize you are a hard person to track."

"You knew where you could have found me," Aleutian reiterated, his tone deepening.

"I did, son, but I also viewed _your_ privacy as your domain. Wish I could have said the same for Knuckles. But he we had to watch along with the whole Island. It wasn't until Haven was blown up by the Dark Legion that we haven't been able to keep our collective eye on things."

Aleutian watched his dad painfully pinch his lips at something. "I was tortured myself, Aleutian," Locke said. Almost whispered it. "The old adage that 'everyone breaks.'" Aleutian nodded, remember well that he broke under a weary mind and truth cerium. "I'm here to say it's not all true."

"Was it the Legion, father?"

"No, it was the Dingos. As you know they are under Robotnick's biddable thumb, now."

Aleutian crossed his arms and relaxed his stance. "So I've heard."

"And as you know the Legion is fighting with us."

"And they have their own _civil war_," Aleutian added, pushing.

With a squinting nod, Locke was seeing Aleutian's mood change for the better. His warrior spirit was coming to bear. "You will come back home, right?"

"I plan to father, just want to do my part in Knothole for a week or more."

Locke shook his head. "A week we can't even afford."

"Dad, I'm only one echidna. What can I possibly do to make this better and in a hurry?"

"Well," Locke began, standing. "You have your ability to use the chaos powers from the Emerald."

Aleutian thought of shaking his head, but he sighed. "I don't know."

Locke surrounded Aleutian's shoulders with his comforting hands. "Son...I have faith in you, as your mother has had for all these years. Our people are looking for it, help them find it by finding yours and compounding ours."

Like that of a surging tide, his father's words sunk in. They always have. "Strength and honor, courage and will;" Locke had once told him that phrase and for all the years, Aleutian remembered. He stuck to it. And to his great happiness when she was alive, she helped him try to keep to his father's lesson.

"_Strength and honor, courage and will_," he chorused to himself. _"Resolve is thy's weapon. Courage is thy's knowledge to use it." _echoed Lopper's accent-less voice.

His thoughts reflected on Locke's smirking face.

As his own lit. Charged!

"Let's get to work, father."

* * *

Safety was key. Drilled and drilled and drilled even further by, of all armies, the Dark Legion, Julie-Su practiced safety with a passion when her weapon was drawn. Looking down the long trench of the sight between the two barrels of her double-blaster, she zeroed in on the head of a slain Eggbot–thanks to Sonic sometime ago–and gently pressed the trigger. Yellow bolts of electric fire pounded out the twin barrels and pierced the round hulk of the Eggbot, melting it at first before erupting in molten steal and parts. The kick of her weapon was always a slam. She kept both hands firm on the grip constantly, accepting the kick as an expression of fun than a fault of her choice weapon.

Holstering it on her right hip in a special rig she and Bunnie had made for it, she stepped back some on the grassy range, shifted her shoulders to loosen the tightness she felt after the full charge shot she had just let fly, and pushed her earplugs further into her ear canals. Ready and posed, right foot back, knee slightly bent, she prepared her inner voice for a commanding scream as she rose her hands up and out above her chest.

"_THREAT!"_

The half second it took for her right hand to fall on the handle, the pull of her weapon from the holster, her left hand slapping over her right for support, her eyes gauging the three targets in front of her, and her blaster coming up to meet them; she was a blur of pink and metallic silver. Julie's thumb slammed the select fire switch to single, punching the trigger twice on the lying bot to the far left. A shift in direction! Two more pulls followed by two light shunts in her hand. And the last pivot...followed fiercely by the last two shots.

Smoke bellowed from the masses; ozone licked at her nostrils and she sported a smile upon her lips from the molten carnage she made. It was keeping her mind away from Knuckles and worrying about where he is.

Breathing shallowly, she heard something of a whine coming from somewhere. Her blaster did make such a pitch, but not this loud, nor intermittent. Pulling the barrels down, she released the batteries from inside and checked them. They were giving off a light smoke, but the whine from what she thought was the capacitors charging didn't die. Flustered, she slammed the weapon on two empty chambers, holstered it while placing the cells in her belt, and turned around.

Her eyes were met by Mighty, sheltering his ears with his hands and shouting.

"What?" she hollered, not understanding him.

His lips moved–something about _stand-by_.

"_Oh, yea."_ Rolling her eyes, she removed the plugs from her ears and looked to him with a grin.

"You're on stand-by with us!" Mighty repeated for the fifth time.

"Is this about Knuckles?"

"And the Prowers. They haven't returned either, and Sally and Geoff are worried that it involves this _Chameleon_ deal."

Julie-Su marched forward, massaging her hands from the residual slams from her weapon as she passed Mighty. "Are they calling a meeting about this wild-goose chase they put Knuckles on?"

"An hour," Mighty replied, still shouting. The ringing in his ears wasn't stopping.

"Why that long? We need to go and find them!"

"My thoughts exactly, but St. John said he doesn't want to be premature and busting something wide open when it still needs to be closed." He eyed Julie-Su's frowning, angered face. "Don't worry, Bunnie an't to happy either with 'Twan missing."

A snort as she quickened her pace. "I don't blame her one bit."

* * *

Sally stared a while longer at the screen, searching for something she knew wasn't on the map in front of her–Sonic. "I don't like this, St. John," she seethed emphatically, unfolding her arms and casting a demeaning look at the commander.

"We are getting contingencies ready, 'luv," St. John explained flatly, finding no prudence to calm Sally down. He was just about as downtrodden with the situation as she was.

Moving his eyes from the screen to his right, he saw that Bunnie wasn't enthused either.

"You can get 'ah move on with it, right, St. John?" she snipped, her natural and robotic hands planted on her hips. "Ah swear if anything happened to Antoine–"

"Don't take it out on me, Miss Rabbot," St. John kindly cut her off.

"Ah'm not, sugah, it's Eggman."

"Bunnie," Sally sighed. "Cool your feet, dear."

"Ha, me? If you can sweat over Sonic, then I can too for 'mah Antoine."

Bunnie's spunk enlightened St. John's blank face briefly before his smile was interrupted by the door sliding open. Julie-Su stepped through it, Mighty close behind.

"What's going on?" she asked cooly. Out of the three strong-willed female fighters who resided in Knothole, Julie-Su kept her emboldened estrogen at bay for the most part. St. John saw it as something to be commendable, except the wrong answer could ignite the fury she was known for when it came to either Knuckles, or anyone else she cared about. Considering how she looked: mechanical, robotic replacements from her former calling, her double barrel blaster riding on her hip at the ready, and her glowering eyes of resilience, one would expect her to be indurated on the inside just by how she appeared on the outside. Thank Aurora she found love. Thank Aurora Knuckles found her too. They seemed to calm each other from their egos, and St. John viewed it as a blessing, more so for Knuckles' sake than hers.

"You're on stand-by, 'luv," St. John answered finally.

"I've heard," replied Julie, her tone never flinching. "But what about Knuckles and the rest?"

Sally answered this round. "I'm sorry, Julie, but we've heard nothing."

Julie stepped up beside the princess, watching Sally's face grow pensive, matching her own. Sonic came to the pink echidna's mind; any other time she wouldn't be worrying this much about him. _"Good for you, Sally!" _she wanted to saw aloud, but to expose Sally's coming feelings felt too premature. "What do you want me to do?"

"Easy, soldier," Sally punned, "just sit and worry like the rest of us." Her arms relaxed from her words, still holding their chest but not as tight and determined, her head sinking towards the floor with a sigh. "I want to be back out there. I can't stand just _sending_ people out anymore and waiting for their return...then sending them out again."

Lifting her head up, she brought her eyes to Julie's. "I used to join in on the attacks. Lead the fight during the battle, Julie..."

"Yeah. Should've seen her back in the days, Julie," Bunnie commemorated from the times of better glory, better circumstances. "Ah miss rubbing shoulders in the dirt with 'ya, Sally-girl."

Julie's charitable touch totally relaxed Sally, finding Julie's three finger gloved hand resting upon her shoulder. "I know what you mean, Princess. It's even hard for me as a soldier to sit on the sidelines and wait. But I do...something Knuckles has taught me, and something I had to practice to get used to."

"But I want back in the fight, Julie."

"I understand, Sally," Julie reenforced over a squeeze. "I'm confident you'll get your chance."

Resuming their cumulative stare, both girls returned to the screen.

"But what are our plans, anyhow?" Julie asked.

"Force," Mighty responded from behind everyone else. "Send in the works, and clean house."

"Easier said than done," Geoffrey countered, killing the armadillo's enthusiasm. "We have Tails and Amadeus to look for as well. They haven't returned our messages and this _Chameleon_ bit has me on edge about the whole lot of things."

"Well," Bunnie spoke up, "anything new Chuck and Rotor found about the messages?"

A shake of St. John's head. "Ask them when they get in. So far nothing, but the two have been working late into the morning."

"Nicole," prompted Sally. The screen flashed with Nicole's lynx, mobian face. "Please tell me you have _something_ with the ciphers."

"I'm getting closer, Sally, but nothing I can give at this time to be of real help," came the straight female voice through the speakers.

"And thus, we still wait," echoed St. John. "We can get the ships prepped, but for right now that is the best we can do without blowing something wide open."

Sally's face light up with her temper. "Either way, Geoffrey, I want us doing something more than stand around. Make something happen in two hours!"

A curt bow of the head. "Yes...to all of you."

* * *

Yanar's hand was firm this time, his hand shake pumping with his smile reflected his exaltation. Stenson felt the same on Yanar's behalf, showing the same smile as the Ambassador which seemed to add light to the drawn blackness of the night and mist. The change in Yanar's strength was rewarding to Stenson. Lar-Na's returning strength to be beside him was energizing.

"Thank-you for all you've done, Mr Yanar."

"Stenson, for the second time I can say the pleasure was all mine. The first goes to Knuckles and his friend Sonic. But," he said, bringing his mouth close to Stenson's ear while still firmly holding his hand, "I was scared stiff last night."

"It happens to the best of us, Mr. Yanar," the Field Marshal returned just as eager. Just as honest.

"You can drop the formalities, Stenson. I see us as friends, you and I. Unlike the Council. I still have my reservations about what they think of you...which is good, right?"

Stenson gave one more assuring shake and released his hand from the Ambassador's. "Yes, Yanar. I'd rather them fear than be bold about this."

"You're kidding," Yanar protested, looking on at Stenson as if he was talking skulduggery to him.

Ell-Tee had heard Stenson's reply as he walked towards the gangway, noticing Lar-Na showing the signs of trying to smile. "Some fear is good, Mr Yanar. It keeps things real."

"And it keeps your head straight in the game," Lar-Na added, holding her breath some to keep from coughing. The thick humid air of the ocean port was doing a number on her lungs.

"Well," Yanar tittered, "see you in a week or more?"

"At the very latest, Yanar," Stenson confirmed. "Depends on how fast we can load more up and get back underway."

"And will you be staying with us next come around?" Yanar pressed emphatically.

Ell-Tee filled in the line. "It's looking that way, plus a good platoon of Legionnaires for support."

Yanar's expression lowered in suspicion. "What about keeping us a secret from your..."

"It's an idea, Yanar," Stenson eased, turning his head to Ell-Tee with a shrugging look penciled on his face. "We can do what is needed, just by our knowledge and experience, but a good backbone of troops from our end could help. It's up to you, now, if you want that to happen. Nothing is yet set in stone."

Yanar considered Stenson's option for more than a moment, seeking Lar-Na then Ell-Tee's waiting looks for advice. It came with a thoughtful nod. "From what you told me of this, Lien-Da, and from your unscrupulous ultimatums, I will pass on the high numbers and trust in you all." His eyes wandered to the cloudy, dark skies of the night and over the mast of the _Hawking_ the three were awaiting to board. "Trust in this world is becoming shorthanded."

Stepping forward at his statement, Lar-Na kissed Yanar on the cheek and took his hand with a feminine, but strong grasp. Her smile was pleasing, asking herself whether his eyes were projecting the truth. "That was the most honest, and bravest thing I have heard you say since seeing you, Yanar. Please tell me there is more of that in you?"

"There is, milady. I just hate to reflect how I have to grow the courage to become it. My time with the tribe saw a great many horrors and despair. When I was but a mere pup, the tribe was attacked by Robotnick's bots."

"I remember you telling us of this," Stenson remembered.

"Yes...some of us were robotosized. Others were killed in the resistence." His sigh was warming, but saddened. "Athair lost his equal to become enslaved as a machine, and I heard of whole families were that slain when I grew older. But we did fight back."

"As you are now," Ell-Tee managed to say diplomatically. "We will do our best, friend."

"Speaking of which," Stenson put in, finding Ell-Tee's last word sparking to mind a certain aqua hedgehog and his wife and escort. "Did Rob-O make it alright?"

"It was new ground for Craig, Oscar, and Jann-Et, but from what I heard, they made it alright," answered Ell-Tee humorously.

Stenson's muzzle broaden into a smile. "I hope they like the gift I gave them. It's more so for Wesson, but I know he will share." Stenson sighed away his discomfort. "Please look after him while we're gone."

"How is he, by the way?" Lar-Na pressed, her eyes lightened with compassion.

Yanar took in a deep, nodding breath. "Nata-Le is awake with him. From what they told me before coming here, he is still out, watching him for shock. He's a _trooper_ I give him that. I don't think I could've done that to myself."

"It's Wesson, Yanar," Stenson pointed out somberly. "I'm afraid for him as he's about to undertake a radical change in his life."

The Ambassador's nod was filled with promise. "We'll see that his transition isn't filled with hardships. Amuse is a great gentle-echidna and he is willing to have Wesson as a family member. Car-Le on the other hand..." Yanar shrugged his cheeks with the vacancy of his thoughts.

Ell-Tee's smile was devious. "She's going to have her hands full with him."

Stenson thought of laughing, but he passed on the notion. Instead he took Yanar's hand one last time. "Sir, it's been an honor," he said with pride, "we must be on our way."

"Oh, Stenson...please. Like I said, the pleasure is all mine." Yanar pressed one last time to Stenson. "And if you happen to see the Guardian, Knuckles, tell him all is forgiven with me, and tell him I do wish to see him again. The times will be better."

"I'll pass it on, but I can't guarantee I _will_ see him–"

"And the one with the scars," Yanar reminded. "When you come back, please, do have some inquires about the Guardian with the scars."

"I shall...I intend to."

Releasing Stenson's hand for the final time, Yanar took Lar-Na's and kissed it. "Milady, please get better. Your beauty adds to your husband's determination in life."

She found the will to embrace him. "Yanar, you are an honorable Echidnian. Don't let these pacifist tear that from you."

"Not with Wesson around I won't," he returned in kind.

Ell-Tee stood erect, awaiting Yanar's hand, which he took in force.

"At ease, man," chorused the Ambassador.

"Sir, just showing the respect of the few people I have around here."

"Thank-you, Ell-Tee, and I shall tell Oscar and Craig the same," Yanar finished. "By way, where's Vickers? I liked that young man. Gave me a few words of advice, he did."

"He's on board already, Yanar," Lar-Na replied. "He's getting things squared away."

"Well, tell him I shall look forward to seeing him again. And I'm sure Jessi-Ca is too."

Stenson numbly shook his head. "I'm not losing another one to you?"

"I'm afraid so when he comes back. She's a bit clingy to him...so I've heard."

"I've hope you've heard wrong," Stenson grumbled.

It was here that the three Legionnaires took their leave, giving Yanar their last smiles and nods before setting to the gangway. Stenson followed the dancing tail of his wife while Ell-Tee watched his footing so as not to step on his Field Marshal's cloak. Reaching the top, a brown echidna crewman–the same one who pulled Yanar aboard from the previous day–was standing by the controls to lift the gangway from the concrete dock. He nodded to Ell-Tee when the long dread locked Legionnaire climbed the last of the metal steps and gave him a thumbs-up to raise it. Lar-Na took Stenson's side by the railing, placing her left hand at his back and the other over her mouth when she gave a weakened cough. It triggered Stenson to look away and up from Yanar. His eyes were fixed to hers, ignoring the glimmering wet deck of the ship, and Ell-Tee's presence.

"Why don't you go into our cabin, dear?" he offered steadily.

"I'll be fine,_ Stenson_."

Her defiance didn't last with him. "Lar-Na...please. Do as I ask of you _this time_."

Ell-Tee watched Lar-Na's kind expression, disappear into an aghast reluctance, which he has rarely seen. The wait was uneasy to him. He wasn't sure if she was going to throw a fit, or smack Stenson. Her face said that much with what she was telling Stenson.

A gust of wing passed the tension when she obeyed, throwing Stenson the dreaded look as she stepped away from the moist railing and ducked inside the port hole. Something told the re-promoted Captain Stenson that it wouldn't last. Briefly he didn't feel good about it, but because of her health, he was worried about her stubbornness. It was for her stubbornness that he proposed to her...to see if she would challenge his hand.

She took it without a fight to his bewilderment, and to his disappointment.

"Ell-Tee, to the bridge and let's get out of here."

"South sir, or are we–"

"We are, Ell-Tee," Stenson affirmed, interrupting with a stern voice as he found the flight of stairs. "North to the port and then South to catch the Island."

Ell-Tee never thought he was going to do this, but a reason formed deep within his soldiered-self and his question came out faster than he could will himself to stop.

"Sir, Field Marshal?" Stenson stopped half-way up the stairs. His hunched back told Ell-Tee to continue on if he must; his voice said that much about his concerns. "Sir, I wish you'd reconsider this, _operation_, just for the ship and the refugees' sake."

Stenson fired a disapproving look across his shoulder. "_Lieutenant_, I have, and we are." He stepped around to address Ell-Tee, receding his commanding look back to kindness for the sake of the friendship he and Ell-Tee shared from time to time. "You saw what that thing tried to do to us. You saw what _those_ things are capable of. Need I remind you what the Guardian Knuckles said it did--killed a whole family of Overlanders." Ell-Tee's unreasonable expression was unmoved. "Listen, our ship is now one of war."

"Our ship, _sir_, is meant to float and carry souls aboard and _I'd_ like to see it stay that way," Ell-Tee countered, taking a step for emphases.

"Ell-Tee," Stenson pushed, but still candidly, "would you rather fight one of those again while it's submerged, or forgo the stress and sink them while their laying around."

"I'd rather stay covert than overt, sir."

Stenson sighed in his consideration. "I do to, friend." He turned back to the stairs, hesitated before he continued on, still talking, "I do to, but we don't have guardian angles this round." Easing into the bridge he turned and waited for Ell-Tee to follow him through. When he did, he continued, doing his best to ignore the echidna's questioning face that resembled nothing of expressionless. "We have the resources to do this at a safe distance. Our guns can reach five miles in, our radar can pinpoint the port, and we're going to need it for the soup we're sailing in." Stenson grabbed his best comforting smile he could find within himself and pressed it to Ell-Tee, along with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "The weather is in our favor–"

"And luck?" Ell-Tee wanted to bark, but didn't; keeping his voice leveled.

Stenson showed his consideration with an affirming nod. "It's never on our side. The odds, I agree, we can never assume are on our side, Ell-Tee."

"Then, please sir, reconsider."

The gathered crew in the bridge watched on. If it were the Legion, Ell-Tee and Stenson would have had their conversation outside just for the Field Marshal to keep his face, much less save it. Stenson felt he needed the persuasion, and for others to hear it. "I am, Ell-Tee. But I worry about our return with those things this close. We could either get sunk on our way back with little repercussion of loss of life, or vice versa. I don't like either option and I do wish I had one to forgo all of this, but it isn't what's in the cards, and I'd rather play the wildcard now and not get shafted with it."

Stenson shifted his stance to Petty Officer Trent, who was awaiting his first commands by the helm with the helmsmen. "Cast off all lines," Stenson ordered.

"And Lar-Na?" Ell-Tee questioned dryly as Trent repeated the orders over a sound-powered telephone anchored at his peacoat.

Seeing a few of the crewmen on the deck scurrying to the lines through the corner of his eye, Stenson snapped around to Ell-Tee and shoved his mouth past his ear. "Don't you speak of her like that!"

"Speak of what?" Ell-Tee shot back, keeping his voice disciplined to a whisper.

Stenson couldn't respond. The combative tone he gave Ell-Tee instead echoed back to him as an answer. Disgust. Not only did he hear it, but he felt it. He wanted there and now to take back his venom outburst. He wanted to apologize to Ell-Tee for the acid he delivered into his ear in front of all others to see. But he knew it wasn't going to mend the fresh wound he had just opened to his dear friend, and not without at least a justifiable reason for his vitriolic warning.

He eased his head back from Ell-Tee's, the Lieutenant's face timid with perplexity.

"Lines secure?" Stenson asked, still keeping his attention to his long dread locked friend.

"Yes, Captain!" Trent returned.

"Port engine ahead slow, port strafing thrusters at max."

Ell-Tee stood completely emotionless, watching his Field Marshal and friend from over the years order him just by his posture, to stay put. He could feel the engines powering up. He could see the pier after a moment of lapsed time become gradually distant by a void of swirling water in his peripheral vision. He could feel the sensation of movement; the tussle of physics between objects in motion and those wanting to be at rest. Such as him. Such as his Field Marshal. From his pensive standpoint, as the pier vanished from his fixed sight, Ell-Tee's strongest feeling wasn't of the moving ship or the ebbing waters that were taking them out to sea, but of being hurt somehow. It didn't come from Stenson's harsh words that seemed out of place for him.

"Disengage strafe–all engines to ahead standard."

"_Sir?"_ Ell-Tee wanted to press. But he couldn't will himself to. The tone Stenson had taken, his speech and body language, told him that_Stenson_ had become out of place. Was it their stay in Albion? Was it losing Wesson to love? Ell-Tee wished for his own blessing as the now former young sergeant was, he hoped, going to enjoy; but, now he was prying for any reason as to why Stenson had snapped so unpredictably to him about Lar-Na. He always accepted Ell-Tee's inquires about her with thanks. Even when his inquiries were to put her in the forefront of an operation instead of victory, Stenson always received it with kindness and gratitude. Not with a temperament Ell-Tee could not match at this evolution in time.

His long dreads lifted from the floor as he sunk his head to his chest, never caring to see the blue outline of the shield eclipse into a half-moon ring. The_ Hawking _passed through it, leaving nothing but moderate open ocean in front of it. And still Ell-Tee cared not to look back. Charged he felt. Now he wanted to express his own fever of discontent with Stenson's hurtful words...

"Ell-Tee, take the bridge," Stenson calmly commanded.

It took him by surprise. He felt his confronting anger leave him to be replaced by a cold, undefined chill.

"Set course to zero-two-five, and ahead full. Give us distance from Mercia with sonar and radar on full alert."

Ell-Tee's rallying reply hurt to be spoken. "Aye, _sir_!"

He tried to step away from the passageway as Stenson stepped towards it. He tried to let him slip by, but Stenson stopped him, halting him by clasping his gentle hand over his shoulder as he peered out the bridge and aft towards the stern.

"_Stubborn_," Stenson coed with a cherished voice deep within his head. Lar-Na's blue tail lay slumped, her hair and dreads dancing in the cool breeze as she leaned over the stern railing and watched the shield collapse into the ocean, hiding the majestic city of Albion from all sight.

"I'm sorry, Ell-Tee, for my outburst," he whispered, squeezing Ell-Tee's shoulder to halt any reply of anger or acceptance from ever being born. Stenson powered through the unbearable pain within his heart to say the reason. "She has cancer, my friend...She's leaving us."

The moment Stenson's hand left his shoulder, Ell-Tee's face dropped into utter sorrow, giving his all to the fleeing back of his Field Marshal.

* * *

"May I join you..." –Lar-Na left her searching stare of the churning wake and brought it over her shoulder to see Stenson strolling up to her– "...my mistress?"

His hidden smile soon became hers. "I want to be left alone, Stenson."

"I'm sorry," he quipped dryly, taking the needed paces to meet the railing, "but for one to lead, one must lead by example first. Disobeying orders, well...I'm following your example."

Lar-Na's smug was light, her attention swaying back to the churning waters. "Alright, what do you want, lover-boy?"

Deep, needing eyes graced her calm body. "I already have it, my love." He waited, watching, loving every minute of her gazing quest for thought and peace. He soon found himself staring out towards the nothingness that seemed to be their own vacant void of space. Over a week ago, he reflected, a Guardian stood here with a duck who had performed greatly to keep the living, living. Stenson only saw their conversation from afar before he, himself, had turned in from his first day of command–which was almost a disaster if it hadn't been for said _Guardians_. Lar-Na seemed to resemble the depression the elder Guardian had dispensed with in the same open waters. But she wasn't riddled with it, taking in the scenery as the joy of being alive, and not as a curse.

"You know," he said, kicking himself for breaking the silence. But he wanted to hear her voice; "I think our _vacation_ was a relief from the stress of work. Might I suggest we take more?"

She laughed; he smiled as he took in the reward. "How about next week?" she said, mockingly.

Stenson exaggerated a shrug from his shoulders. "I think that could be arranged. I don't know how long it will last?...But yea, I think we can shoot for it."

Her smiled died, with it his enthusiasm. "We're going North?" she asked almost critically.

"We must. In order for us to have a peaceful cruise on our return, we must."

Time passed with silence between them. Lar-Na called her head to lean upon Stenson's shoulder, finding the longing comfort in it she now relished to have. He stroked her hair, rubbing her natural locks over her lone replacement while keeping his eyes on the water.

"I want to go back Stenson," she said under a quiet voice.

"We will, dear. We have to," he affirmed with another stroke of a lock, leaning his head against hers.

"I want to go back Stenson when it's time. I don't want to die peaceably in a war zone. I want to die _in__peace_."

Her soft whimper leaped to his heart, feeling his throat close as he felt the urge to cry. "As you wish, my love," he answered warmly. "As you wish."

The response released her sight from the ocean, searching out his lips and pressing hers to them. Stenson held on to hers, only releasing when she did, passing with a minute of solitude. And before he could cast his eyes towards the frothy wake, she nestled at his chest, his love caressing her face with each pounding beat of his heart.

Time passed once more with silence until Lar-Na had to lapse away from their love and focus on another couple's.

"Wesson...how are you going to explain Wesson?"

Stenson rubbed her head at his chest. "He's dead. Died in the heat of battle on Mobius prime to save our people."

She scratched at his chest while still looking away from him. "Is the Centurions' gift involved with it." She felt Stenson smile. "I thought you said those things were made of unobtainium?"

"They are," Stenson reflected with a smile. "But what the Field Marshal wants, the Field Marshal gets."

It was here she brought a heavy stare to his face. "And the_manual_?..."

* * *

Craig sat beside himself in the main supply room of the Centurion Headquarters. The walls were white, hardly lined with anything logistical for show and readiness, packed away against the dust. He breathed, his eyes glazed over from not blinking over the three minutes he stared at that large, black polymer case. His lap weighed heavy with his hands. No, it was the book he was holding, forgetting it was there as he rolled the question in his head he kept asking himself over and over again. _"Will the best vanish in the bright light of the room, or will eyes pop open at me and try to suck my blood?"_

The door to his right slid open, waltzing in with a gliding swagger, a pink echidna dressed in the blue of Albion's finest. "You gonna gawk at that thing forever, Craig?"

He could not free his eyes from the metal clamps of the case, studying them further. "Jann-Et, if you don't mind..."

"Is that the manual," she asked, stepping behind him and looking at the thick black book with a tilted head.

Craig said nothing. Her inquiry however ordered him to stray his eyes from the _coffin_ the beast was lying in and fall upon the book in his lap. It was as if haunted spirits had told him to open it to the cover page:

"_Enhanced Service Rifle Series 71004: The Diplomat."_

* * *

At one point I thought about putting a lasting scene of Wesson and Nata-Le in here, but somewhere I thought better of it. Jann-Et was our speedboat operator from "Albion" Chapter many moons ago. I had to put a name for her so most of you wouldn't get her confussed with Nata-Le being her.

* * *


	27. The Wayward Guardian

* * *

Greetings everyone and welcome to my last update for November, and quite possibly for the next month. I'll be rolling out tomorrow and hoping my company sends me West

To the meet and guts here...this chapter was a little hard to write. One, it exposes more history of Aleutian and the pivatol battle where Emi-La was killed. But only to what Darien knows about it. It is not the full story and I do make a mark in here about where the truth really does hide. It will be told...it needs to be told.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the original artist to their characters and arc, and am not seeking profit from them.

Enjoy.

Again: Sara, thank you for the kind words and motivation!

* * *

**The Wayward Guardian**

By: Mauser

* * *

Aleutian marveled at the strength he still possessed in his fingers. His veins and capillaries were on the verge of rupturing in his head and around his face, his dreads were itching from the loose sand gathering around the fur and skin. But he shoved all these irritations away and marveled at the strength he still had in his fingers. The impressive part was that all five digits of his right hand was all he was using to hold himself vertically, his eyes attentively focused on the fossilized sand of the rock foundation he was balancing upon. Consequently it was his mother's gifts that were giving him the hard time. Steadily swaying, hanging outward over his tail were his bolt-laced shoes, causing Aleutian to multitask his one handed balancing act.

He squirmed. He grunted. His center of gravity shifting amongst the trying resistence. The roll was coming, sensing the notion of his feet losing the needed counter-balance made it evident, and his fingers, spread apart like he were a pianist, slipping from their grip. But he was ready for the fall, moving his chin towards his chest to roll over his back through it, reminding himself to do the same with his tail.

To his surprise a pair of supporting hands rushed to his aid balance and renewed his fight with gravity and himself. Only the pressure to continue on wasn't lightened.

"I got'cha!" Locke fronted, his benevolent mood reflective in his tone. "You're doing good!"

Aleutian grunted once more, contemplating wether he should let his left hand do the holding while is right helped to maintain his balance. "I thought...this was done with my eyes closed?" he mustered to say.

Locke was still holding Aleutian's legs, of which his son's calf muscles were firm in muscle tone unlike the rest of him, when he twisted his head over to him. "Do you want to try?"

Aleutian's answer came quick. "Second thought, better not."

"Don't let your fears keep you from trying. In fact don't let anything stop you from at least trying."

"Will I have support?" Aleutian struggled to ask, straightening his head and seeing Archy looking at him with an upside down, urging gaze.

"Always, Aleutian," affirmed the fire ant.

The Fire Ant's pushing stare could've summoned the last drop of morale from the most defeated army history had ever known. And Archy knew deep down within his stare that Aleutian had been a part of that army. _"But you're not defeated here. There is no defeat with us. Just lessons and the vibrant notion to carry on. It was what she wanted."_

Life seemed to slip away from Archimedes when Aleutian closed his eyes. His grip to the boy, he remembered from his first meeting with him and Emi-La, seemingly became lost in the moment Aleutian's eyelids slammed on his caring blue eyes. Driving compassion he could still feel with his. The change was overwhelming for Archy.

It was suffocating for Locke. The joy he felt charging his soul equaling that of falling in love with Aleutian's mother in a time since gone. He thought long ago he could start over with Lara-Le. Her courtship to Wyn, however, was the judgement that things couldn't return for them. But not his son. Not with Aleutian. Yesterday saw the courage for both sides to forgive. Today was showing the reward for that courage. Tomorrow, Locke dreamed, would bring the privilege to be with his son. To love him with the love _he_ had robbed Aleutian, Knuckles, his mother, and himself of. _"...Second place to Dad's love..."_ Aleutian's hand written letter seemed to slam back into Locke's mind as he began to release his son's legs and let him balance himself on his own. Would he have been right? Would he have become bitter more so at his own family than the dead foes he had killed out of retribution and with his soul being lost? Of how enlightened Aleutian is here, nowm and how enlightened he was at six seasons, the letter had that very truth written all over it.

And even now, the pain they all have endured on the journey to bring his soul back to the scruples of his foundation, Locke was absolute in his happiness that the future a six year old had foretold had never come true. For he knew it would have.

On the tenth second of his eyes still closed and on his own, Aleutian kept his balance, only flipping perfectly back on his feet just out of tiredness. The honored looks from Locke and Archimedes were deafening to his soul, but outwardly, he stood rigid, waiting for a new trial. "Again?"

"If you want," Locke urged.

Twirling his fingers, Aleutian placed his hands on the flat rock again, forced his back into an arch and resumed his weight on his fingers, lifting his right hand this time for balance. His strength didn't hold his center of gravity very long this round. Again, Locke raced up and caught Aleutian by the feet.

"Concentrate further, lad," Archy instructed, his voice pushy.

"I'm_trying_ to maintain my balance!" came the young Guardian's strained reply.

Locke shook his head slightly. "You're thinking too much about the current trial and getting past it. Look around it. Look to what may come of beating it. Don't _see_ it as an obstacle to overcome."

Aleutian held his breath, releasing it easily. "I remember."

"Then concentrate, Guardian," reenforced the Fire Ant. "Let your balance become second nature."

Breathing out through his mouth, Aleutian closed his eyes once more and began journeying to someplace where he could take his mind off the burning pressure in his fingers.

A warm smile shown on Locke's face, stepping back from Aleutian as his son began putting teachings into practice. The same teachings the same fire ant told him when he was nine...when his father left for Haven and he took on the duties as Guardian of the Floating Island. Archy was being firm, as he, but fair to Aleutian. He had done the same with Knuckles, and with him in the past, but Locke was smiling reflectively just for being there to see it in person for his son's sake. The current lesson afforded it; multitasking in the mind and in the soul. It was taught as a stepping stone from the material world to the elemental. That of the chaos powers.

Locke felt the cool movement of air around his fur and across his dreads. But the wind was still. Looking to Aleutian, he witnessed the boy lost in his feelings, finding his balancing pose with his eyes shut resembled the one thing he was sure Aleutian enjoyed the most as his gifts in life. And on the notion of air hitting his own face, Locke closed his eyes and felt for Aleutian's feelings. He smiled when he saw the ground was well below his son's feet. He smiled wider at the dancing waters to the east. He felt humbled at seeing Aleutian. His son was six again, perhaps older, his arms straight out as wings and his locks floating on the winds and thermals.

The clouds were lowering to meet him, Locke urging through his inner voice for Aleutian to go higher..._higher_.

* * *

"Higher!"

Tails whipped his means of lift and propulsion faster in a blur of yellow and white fury. His eyes were pensive, his smile bright with effort. Amber's vibrant voice was all he needed for motivation to go higher. "You sure?" he asked a bit too late.

She squeezed Tails' wrist harder, watching her feet dangle at the low treetops as he smirked her at excitement. "Do it!"

And the young fox delivered, whirling his twin tails faster and tilting his body forward to pick up speed. Over the passing wind he heard the tips of his tails bite the air as he powered and synchronized the counter rotation for their means of lift. The world became smaller, the trees became like thick mossy grass, the hills took on the appearance of green sand erosion. Amber took in every second of it with her childish eyes gleaming with excitment as maturity viewed the world so high up.

"Do you have this feeling all the time?" she shouted to Tails.

He banked gently to the right, changing from a northerly heading and turning south. "Most of the time!" he replied emphatically. "I really enjoy it in my plane just for the speed."

"I've never been outside of something and flying! This is so cool!"

Tails beamed his grin down to her. "My pal, Sonic, says the same thing!"

* * *

"They're all here."

Amadeus looked on at the bed of flowers before him. Darien's voice floated with the wavyness of the lilies and roses. Heather's eyes reflected like the yellow tulips with her honored stare. Merlin seemed like the clustered colors of the hole patch, not defining his emotions through expression except that he was humbled just by the presence of the beauty before them. The bed was equally long as it was wide, stretching north for it seemed possibly twenty feet from Amadeus' boots to the pasture it neatly bordered. But Amadeus couldn't grasp by what Darien meant by they were "all here."

"I think your missing a few species, my friend," he said as a come-on question for the correction he assumed would come.

A slight shake of his head, Heather wrapped inside his arms. She, too, looked to Amadeus with a glimmer of sadness. "No, General," Darien stated, "your heros and heroines are all here...your answers are all here, buried in the only garden I can grow. They helped me to grow life with theirs. They sacrificed theirs for your son's and for Knothole's.

"They saved the world entire."

Amadeus felt a crushing pride beat at his chest wall that coursed throughout his veins as the answer kept him silent, shifting his eye to Merlin and seeing his brother looking on with the same humbled expression as he.

"Was it hard putting them to rest?" Merlin asked for Amadeus.

Darien hissed at first from the pain of his diligent and anguishing self-appointed task, but he found the courage he needed to answer Merlin with an even tone in his voice. "Me and Heather came here four weeks after the liberation. Most of their bodies were already decomposing, besides being blown apart, and a few were...scavenged by the crows and the ungrateful. But yes, it was the most difficult thing I have ever accomplished."

Heather squeezed into his chest. "It was for all of us, Amadeus. Twenty-three we buried here. Twenty-three we watch over through our lives."

"We started out as forty," Darien iterated, " I think more, but from other operations we did to get our feet wet, those who I think got too close, and the initial trap to capture us and robotisize us–which almost succeeded–what was left from what I found at the ridge was all that stood in the way of Robotnick's march to Knothole."

"How do you know this since you weren't here?" Amadeus questioned evenly.

"I was told, and later what I saw after coming here rang true. It wasn't until much later that I found out it was Snively's doings and not all of Robotnick's. The feelings were there; a certain rabbit confirmed them for me."

"Does he still visit, by chance?" Merlin inquired briskly.

A shake of his head under a bitter face. "That guy comes and goes as he pleases with the wind. I sure would like to know where he comes from...so I can stay the hell away from him. But no, I haven't seen him in over two years."

Amadeus kept his head leveled at the garden, piecing everything in his burdened mind and trying to digest it and formulate how he was going to tell everything to Elias when he returned. That his friend deserves honors that all the Kingdom, in his militaristic eye, could never give with all the wealth they possessed. He let the notions pass for the moment, seeing his son and Amber appearing over the crest of the hill, giving him a reason to smile.

* * *

"Can it be fixed?" Aleutian asked dryly.

Locke sat down beside him on the hard surface, tucking his large boots under him. "Your ear?" Aleutian nodded passively. "I don't know. Depends on the damage. Depends on how you've healed."

Sighing, Aleutian opened his lips and closed his eyes. "My hearing is alright," he seemed to confess. Locke could see it in his longing eyes he was willing to confess more. "It hurts every now and then–"

"High pitch ringing?"

Another passive nod. "And the occasional headache that follows. Depends on the weather..." –the thought to add to this observation in his mind occurred to him but also the conclusion his father was going to hear it no matter what– "I really thought, though, it was me crying so much, dad. It was all I could tell myself at the time."

"You were depressed, Aleutian," Locke pointed out, however expressing a detrimental thought that he shouldn't have.

"I'm not out of the woods yet, either, father," Aleutian said under a whisper. "I feel it still burning inside me."

"Well, tell me, son. Help me put it out for you. Tell me what's hurting my son so I can comfort you."

Aleutian saw his father's pleading expression in the corner of his sight, but he never glanced over to feel the comfort from it. He kept his blue eyes forward, training them on the standing trees and the gaps they made going down the mountain side.

Their screams and war cries lashed at him in the suddenness of the afternoon wind. He couldn't put them down. Something in him told him he wouldn't; couldn't.

"Aleutian," his father begged fondly, "please, tell me. At least the things that worry you, that really haunt you--"

"It all does, dad." Tears, for once, were holding their place in his eyes. His face, however, was firm. "I want to walk, dad," he seemed to announce only to himself. "Is it alright–"

"Whatever it takes," Locke smiled, hoping to ease the pressure for his son. "I can walk with you."

Tightening his fist, the bow of his head signaled his intentions and Aleutian rose from the ground, helping his father up soon after...but without the same smile.

* * *

"He wanted to kill me, Amadeus. He thought I was one of them and he wanted to kill me."

"And that's what you meant by 'being pardoned by a king?'" Amadeus put forth, petting Tails' head as he stood in front of his father.

"And why I wondered if Mathias had chained him up," Darien added coldly. He stole a glance at his daughter, huddled beside Heather; both of them kneeling down at the garden and plucking a flower. "He came in the dead of night during the Day of Fury," he continued, shifting his heavy eyes to Amadeus again. "Him and that rain coat and hat. He was totally changed, Prower. He wasn't the same echidna I knew, and his gun and searing face at mine sealed the deal."

Stepping forward from his dad, Tails looked up to Darien with accusing eyes. "Amber said she made him stop. Is it true?"

"Tails, son, let us talk," Amadeus interjected.

"No, it's okay, Amadeus," Darien kneeled down over his knees, clasping his hands between them. The look he gave Tails was the same he had given to Amber when he explained something to her that mattered in life. Caring, thoughtfulness. "She did, along with _Pal_...stopped him from pulling the trigger, Miles."

"I don't believe you," Tails said almost with a snap, but he digressed his voice almost in the same quickness. "I know he's in pain, but I didn't see a _murderer_ in him."

"Tails, son, please."

Darien eyed Amadeus once more. "It's okay, Prower. Let him speak."

"Well, he did kill Blackjack," Amadeus revealed.

Darien brushed it off but still took note of it. "He's not a murderer, Tails. I'm still alive, and what he said to me afterwards showed promise in him. But you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"What?" Tails asked, pressing.

His brows revealed his pardon. "That I to hug Amber like I never had before in her life...and I did."

Clasping his arm, Darien leaned into Tails under a inquiring smile. "What have you seen in him, young man? I feared if I had met him again, he wouldn't have given me the same compassion as that night. Please tell me I'm wrong?"

Amadeus waited for his son to speak. Merlin as well.

Tails blinked towards the ground and rose his head to a wanting Overlander. "He's no murderer, Darien. He saved a lot of his people...and I helped him."

* * *

Under past circumstances he would have wanted to walk alone. Under current circumstances he needed the company. Locke was the right mix; to bad for the pack strapped across his shoulders. Turning to him, Aleutian released his tight face to him.

"I never went back to bury them, dad," Aleutian said after a quarter mile of silence. "Is it injustice that I didn't?"

Locke thought hard for a moment, teetering on wether to be honest or sugar-coat his response. His conclusion was of his son's wants. Truthfulness. "For friends, and I guess for you, comrades, yes. A cast off of some kind needed to be done in their honor."

"Is that why they haunt me, then?" Aleutian asked, stepping over a tree limb and caring not of the strain it took to climb northward up the hill.

"That, I wish I could explain for you, but I can't." Locke watched Aleutian's face drop. "What happened to you? What honors do I have to give to you that are deserving?"

A disgusted shake of his head sunk Locke's heart to his stepping boots. "None."

His anger seemed to get the best of him. Locke, for reasons he couldn't explain, stopped his son's walk with a slap at his chest. "_None_? Don't give me that!" Aleutian's face was trembling with surprise and punishment. "We talked about this yesterday."

Anger twisted across his face. "Yes...and you can stop wasting your breath!"

Locke pushed him forward along with his bearing face. "I'm not taking that anymore, ALEUTIAN! Not with those scars across your face!–"

"A GRENADE, ALRIGHT!"

A moment passed between the two deep breathing Guardians, Locke shaken to his very core.

"No, it's not alright!" Locke barked out at last. "Do I need to keep asking over and over again?"

"No, dad," Aleutian trembled out.

"Then tell me what happened two years ago! So far your brother has been through a lot more than what you are letting on, but your appearance is telling me something different. You know he was robotosized to stop Sonic?"

"Yes!"

"Then why didn't you come home for that?"

"I was out on an operation. I didn't know until I got back."

"So you figured he could handle himself?" Locke suggested.

Aleutian's response came after a long breath. "No..."

"Then why did you stay away from us?" Locke pushed.

The slow shake of his head told Locke his questions were wrong. "I was going to come home after my last cruise..." His sigh leaped from his whimpering mouth as a pant. "She made me promise on our way in."

"Then?" his father stammered.

"_Mathias!..."_ spoke Archimedes with an intake of air through his psyche. _"It was Drake, Locke...He was worried."_

* * *

"Sir Drake had his suspicions," Darien said, still holding onto Tails' arm. "Told them to Aleutian along with his reluctancy to send the better part of his crew. Your old friend, Amadeus, General Berdan, happened to be good acquaintances with Mathias."

"You mean adversary, don't you?" Amadeus interjected. Berdan's square, pudgy face resonated in his mind. Coming from a background almost as academic and prosperous as his, the commander of the Overlander's tank and supporting infantry brigade was more than a stitch in his side–more like a pulled muscle that kept ripping open after every call of defeat... after every long casualty list that followed. It was now, and the only other few times Amadeus actually gave credit to Julian Kintobor–before the take over. Julian swung victory in their favor. "_Acquaintance_ to Mathias?" he said, baffled.

Darien's smile was cast to Miles. "He admired your boy and Knothole. So much so that when Richfield gave what I considered to be baited-intelligents–and Mathias the wiser out of the both of us–Berdan took it at face value and I did too, just because we really wanted to do our part and end Robotnick's reign.

"Berdan wanted peace at the very end, Amadeus. Not more war."

"He wasn't a traitor?" Amadeus questioned, still baffled.

"Hardly...he was the one who was betrayed. I don't know how they killed him but they blamed it on one of Robotnick's SWAT bots entering in the compound and killing him and Jeremiah. Soon after, everything went down hill. I saw training go by the wayside, and Aleutian and his Grenadiers getting some really shoddy orders." Darian held a brief pause. "You know that boy can lead?"

"So I've heard," Amadeus said grandly.

"And I've seen it. With Mathias' help I might add," Tails explained.

Darien looked to Tails once more. "Do you know if they are born that way? The Guardians?"

Tails smiled with pride on behalf of Knuckles and now Aleutian. "I think they're bred for it!"

* * *

"...She said what?"

Locke saw Aleutian's eyes widen from Julie-Su's observation. "She said she'd go to battle with you anytime."

"Just with a better head," Archy concluded, smiling with his arms crossed.

Aleutian wanted to brace against a tree, but he couldn't find one nearby him, surprisingly. "I didn't do much, except yell at them a little harshly and did my best to get things going."

"Apparently it left an impression on her, Aleutian. And she is very hard to please at times," Archimedes elaborated.

"How did Mathias treat you?" Locke asked next, wondering if the Dingo rode him hard.

"Like Chester, but also like his crew when I came aboard," Aleutian answered right off. "I did about everything on the boat and I had to just to be a part of it. I saw the _Plunger_ as a means to keeping my word to Knuckles."

"And helped Knothole," reminded Archy.

"They were still invaded," Aleutian whispered.

Locke would have none of it. "They weren't defeated, son. You apparently gave your all and they got to have a chance to take Robotnick down in the very end."

Aleutian rubbed his face, feeling his scar through his thick glove. He wanted to change the subject but he knew Locke wasn't going to let up. One part of him couldn't fault him for knowing, however, the wounds he still felt, and when he looked at himself in the mirror, the ones that kept visibly reminding him, he couldn't bear to reflect the horrors he lived through just out of fear he would live through them again. And many times he did in his sleep.

He couldn't tell...he'd come this far to defeat his depression, and he didn't want to lose again and in the course, lose his family he needed so desperately.

"That book I pulled from my shelf the other day?"

Locke's nod was somber. "Yes, the one with no title and no author."

"I've never read it, dad. I only told of what I did once, and that was under hypnosis from Lopper. He filled in the gaps for me, but deep down I still felt the pain and anguish, I fear it may open it up to it again. So if you don't mind...I'd rather not tell it."

"Can we read it?" Locke asked understandingly

"Give me time, dad. Just give me time. I was really wanting to give it back to him. Just knowing it is with me, haunts me."

A tear ceased to lap at his face, wiping it away while it was premature to the sun. What came of it though was still guilt. "Mother..." he whispered. "I said somethings to her, dad, I really want to take back."

"Like what?" Locke asked, feeling he already knew the answer.

Aleutian continued his walk, feeling the urge to do it to help ease his mind further. "That I wanted to keep my scars...that I had my reason to let them stay."

"Well, do you?"

Shaking his head, he felt his heart beat a little stronger with his conviction he was finding what he wanted to really say. His shoes and gloves were his guiding light to pursue them. His crest the reason. "No...and if she wants them cleaned up–if she says they can, then I want it."

Locke stopped, causing Aleutian to do the same. Looking on at him, sizing him up for what seemed a second chance to do so in a new light, he gave an affirming nod and stepped closer to him. "If it's what you want..."

"For mom, I do, dad. If she believed in me for all this time, then what am I doing is hurting her with my hollow reasons. King Max was correct dad, and I too after looking back on it." Locke and Archimedes watched as Aleutian shook his head, but keeping a fortitude stare at him. "These are not my medals."

"And not your shame either, lad," Archy said, proudly.

Aleutian's bow was charged like his face. "I want my lock whole again, too."

Locke's voice grew eery. Aleutian's request beckoned it. "Your asking for the Dark Legion on that end. I don't know."

"Okay," his son said, "we'll see, how's that?"

Locke smiled. "We'll see."

* * *

"...You tell him that I'm sorry, Tails," Darien said, his request echoing through his firm squeeze on Tails' arm. "You tell him it was my fault..."

"_Darien_?..."

Heather's calling voice seemed to only add to his grief. His face sunk, cowered to the ground but he still managed to hold onto Tails.

Crying...a grown man's cry was something Amadeus saw as cruelty from the world that caused it. He, himself, had succumbed to the aching despair once he was returned to flesh and blood but on another world and without his new born son. The hostility of war which separated Mobian from Overlander, in Amadeus' mind, were forever tied now with grief of a false promise of total uniting. Lost was his indifference; gained was his sympathy.

"Please ask for his forgiveness on my behalf," the Overlander harshly cried at the ground, Heather's arms clasping around him. "Please..."

It stopped as suddenly as it began, his crying. He worked his head up, tugged from his wife, and now his daughter, and fumbled at his pocket, shaking his fingers up as he picked something brilliantly silver from it and offered it to Tails.

It was a platinum ring.

"Give this to him, Miles," Darien shunted under his quivering lungs. "Give this to him as my token to live on...to never have to worry...to come back. Tell him I accept my pardon to live with my suffering comrades and to tend to their peace. And tell him I loved her just as much as him."

And with his request that seemed more as a promise to Tails, Darien placed the ring into his hand and rolled Miles' fingers over it.

"Please, Tails...for my friend."

Tails didn't feel it until now, but his own lungs were heaving under his emotions. A soft whisper was all he could manage. "I will, sir. I will take it to him."

* * *

Under the afternoon sun, his domain was splintered in the shadows from the supports of his atrium window. To lounge and gaze out it wasn't in his interest this time. Typing faster was. Watching the screen in front of him, it's white simulated paper program becoming dotted with letters, while the second screen's cursor to his right moved at a quicker speed than he was hammering, Snively twitched his lips after another thought leaped from his fingers, to the key board and to the cipher program in front of him.

The status report came late and was the main reason he was working harder than he should to send off the next line of orders. Assuming what he thought was going to be an easy covert plan and operation to execute did come with its problems. One subject was barely dead while the other was trying to produce more blood...and not on her own. The girl was strong, he noted but not commendably. It came as a surprise after watching the male rip off an Eggbot's arm and use its sword against itself.

But that was enough of the praising; more with the problem.

"_Two!..."_ he snapped at himself. Only two were operational while the others were on stand-by for more of her blood! He didn't want this. He wanted a precise strike at key areas and at key times. Not _TWO_ operational units at his disposal! Flicking at his nose, he simmered himself down and used his weapon of knowledge over the weapons he _did_ have, literally, at his fingertips. He still wanted them to hunt in pairs. He still wanted them to brandish his power and gain more approval and if so be it, full cooperation from his uncle. _"LACY!...Ha...I can do more than just be a stool for you to eat your lunch on while I do all the work!"_

But he sighed for patience, thinking harder now on what to do. Could he wait? Possibly, but Eggman's other plans had accelerated recently: the Eggfleet was getting close to full strength, an old but newly designed Delta-bot was rolling off the assembly lines and getting the last of the upgrades before their deployment, and lastly, Eggman was becoming impatient.

"_Such as I."_

And so what to do? Wait...or send off?

The blinking cursor was calling to him, hitting his eyes like a bad addiction to a vice. Should he act on it? Will his wanting approval be rewarded if he does.

The temptation was suffocating, and he had to breathe. His fingers were as if they were his lungs, punching the letters on the keyboard in a ballet of plastic rhyme. They flashed in his mind, his conceived orders, his digits pounding them out faster than he could organize them. But he did, and in the two minutes, he completed the message, then he sat back intently, scanning the page on the screen directly in front of him while shifting to the one at his right. The cipher was brilliant, the message four whole paragraphs longer in a language and phonetic characters not even the highest of Mobian intelligence could speak if they even had the will to try.

Snively checked the satellite frequencies, chose one that seemed to be available, punched in the destination, and pressed a simple looking green button that had _SEND_ written on top of it.

Now all he could do was lean back in his chair...and wait for a house to crumble.

* * *

Okay...I do hope that you will all remember the ring. Now off of that subject...whew!...talk about a lot of split scenes and shortly spaced. But, to me, I couldn't tell one part of the story without the source being a part of it. What I really wanted to do, and possibly will do when I get to revising this after it is done: I wanted to have a little more conflict with Aleutian and Locke and what the father wasn't going to accept from his son here on out. No more difiance, no more silence. But I guess we established that.

Please, I hoped you all enjoyed, and I sincerely am glad you are all my audience.

Mauser out.

Hey, Sara...PM me!

* * *


	28. The Gentle Tide Brings the Harsh Surf

* * *

Happy 2008! For a gift, I bring you a new, long chapter. I know the new bit sounds entertaining than the long bit.

Okay, this chapter has both mystery, love and tenderness, horror, and suspense. I wrote, or actually started the first part right behind finishing the last chapter. I'm also starting this off with a character we don't hardly see much, and I'm planning to bring more into this story. Ray the Flying Squirrel. I hope I accuratly depicked him.

What I also did for this chapter was to tell a back story of two of my own characters in here. I felt it was missing some, and the absence happened to work out in the long run. I know the title seems long, but I hope it also brings a meaning that things are starting to pick up.

I have one more chapter on the chopping block and I can't wait to bring it to you all. So stay tuned, I'll try to have it done today.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the original creators of the Sonic arcs and games and I don't claim them as my own.

Enjoy...(hope I did the scene spacing in this one okay?)

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**The Gentle Tide Brings the Harsh Surf**

By: Mauser

* * *

Ray the Flying Squirrel skipped over the stairs at a speed one might fear he could trip over. Need not worry, the blur of short yellow fur cheered, _"I can be just like Sonic, too!"_

He made good on his fantasy, completing the last series of spiraling stairs to the upper sections of Knothole City, running as fast as his juvenile legs could carry him, and leaning into the turns around the tree-city. Crossing an interconnecting bridge from one tree to another, he bolted left and rounded the large oak tree he was asked to run to, finding his destination closed as soon as he skidded to a stop.

Knocking twice, he didn't bother to wait to receive an answer before bursting through the door and dangerously startling Commander St. John who had a wad of papers as his only weapon. "What!" shouted St. John after coming down from his adrenaline surge. Thank the stars he was already standing.

"Uncle Chuck is tracing one of those goofy transmissions again!" Ray shouted back but filled with glory in his completed mission.

"Right now!?"

"Yea–told me to come get you!"

St. John didn't let a second lapse, slamming his papers on the desk and grabbing the beret underneath them, he synched it down, smoothed the excess to the right side and marched almost at a double timed pace out the door.

Ray followed, slamming the door behind him. "Is this good?"

"Very good, Ray," returned St. John, "now do me a favor!"

"You got it. Anything, Geoff!"

He smiled but kept his head forward as he darted around his office to the left. "Go find Shadow and Espio and tell them to meet me at Freedom HQ!"

"Done!" And the flying squirrel was off in the other direction, jumping from the railing and vanishing behind the supporting trunk after spreading his arms to glide down.

Geoffrey wished he could fly, but he needed the hastened walk to organize his thoughts. _"Another signal; lost hedgehog and echidna...oh, right, and coyote. The Prowers haven't called, and I need to eat!"_

Climbing down the steps, he was pleasantly met by Hershey with a basket tucked under her arm. _"Problem solved!"_ "Luv, we'll have lunch at the HQ," he said, grabbing her under her free arm and spinning her back in the opposite direction.

"But...Geoffrey!"

"Luv, it's too important right now. Maybe when things calm down some, we can have a quiet lunch...but now is not the time."

A groan under her tempered eyes. "Okay!"

She could barely keep up, even with his hand tugging at her arm. When they scrambled inside the door of the HQ, she was out of breath and Geoffrey instantly became glued to the large screen. "Charles?" he announced, seeing the blue furred, mustache hedgehog at the bottom of his vision. He too was looking skyward at the map.

"It's a bouncer. So far seven satellites and two relay stations. This new encryption he's using just might overload the whole system?"

"Ours?" St. John flustered.

"Nah...his! We aren't the ones receiving this thing yet. What it's trying to do is keep it's original configuration while bouncing through the cosmos at the same time. So the satellites wait to make sure the message is accurate before they send it out to the next relay."

A red line of information St. John couldn't quite understand until he studied it further, popped upon an adjacent screen to the top right of the larger one. "Is it moving?" he gathered aloud.

"Yep," Sir Charles the Hedgehog replied, punching in a sequence of codes to keep up on the tail end of the message. It stopped again, but not for a long period of time, racing somewhere over the North Pole and landing just inside–

"Bingo!" St. John shouted with a slight vigor. "Is it definite, Charles?"

"It's looking good! Nicole, can you confirm?"

"Yes, Charles," came Nicole's voice through the speakers. "I got the message in it's entirety and saved it on the last satellite. I'm redirecting it here as of now!"

Everyone waited. Geoffrey controlled his excitement while studying the blinking red light hovering just inside the Badlands to the northeast. Chuck, on the other hand, was dreading to see the message. He didn't have to endure the anxiety long. "HOLY KNOTHOLE!" he cursed in a fury with his aged voice. "Commander, I'm seeing new characters in this one!"

Geoffrey nodded, looking at the bottom screen from the satellite origins. "Easy, Charles. We have a destination where this mess has been going to as of late. You think it might have the cipher program there?"

"How else are they going to read it," Hershey quipped.

"My point exactly," Geoffrey replied, gauging the room's current inhabits, finding a few missing. "Where's Sally?"

"Lunch," Chuck answered. "I was about to head out when we caught this thing coming out of New Robotroplis. Looks like the old slide rule is needed, again," he sighed.

"Nicole," Geoffrey prompted. "Anymore of these messages went towards the prison or elsewhere?"

"No, Commander. I did follow one going _to_ New Robotropolis, but this is the only one that went out."

"Same cipher?" he quizzed.

"Same, Geoffrey."

Two sandwiches later helped put things into perspective for awhile. Sitting with Hershey in silence was the most refreshing reprieve while he scarfed down some sliced apples. From the current operations and the hast that came with them, lunches such as this were too few for them. But today and due in part to last night's late work load, he could savor the moment and meal. Knowing everything was set and done with Sally's approval along with Elias', all he needed to do was brief and send his next dispatch on their way, given time, of course. Rushing things spelled disaster in the long run, and he definitely wanted input from the team he was planning to send out.

Thinking of which during a swallow, he saw Shadow step through the door. Geoffrey never let the hedgehog announce his brooding presence, pointing with his eyes and nose at the blinking screen.

"Look familiar, by chance?"

Following St. John's gesture, Shadow didn't stray his sight long at the blip on the map. "It does," he allowed, shifting his blank face to the sitting skunk.

Geoffrey snapped up from his chair and crisply walked up to Shadow. "Care to feast on revenge?" he quipped eagerly. "It's a cold dish I hear."

"Catch," retorted the black hedgehog, his eyes searching out the blinking red dot again.

"I have none to offer, mate," Geoffrey offered, thoughtfully. "You'll just have to bear with an addition to your dining out, is all."

"I go alone!"

"Figures," Geoffrey snuffed, then shook his head evenly, "Unfortunately for you, I can't allow that. Too much at the moment is at stake with just one pair of eyes. I need two. But it's all I'm asking."

Turning to Charles, St. John made his next inquiry. "How was the pass last night?"

Chuck sighed under his tiredness. "Rotor didn't get anything, Commander. The pass was too low latitude wise and our resolutions came up with trees and mountains. Same on the infrared."

"_Blimey!"_the skunk cursed under his breath. "Well...?"he trailed off for Shadow to snatch.

He was still pensively mesmerized at the large screen, grasping for a decision. His silence passed briefly as a roving thought of Eggman's raving face from another failed plan and trashed goods which actually amused him this time. His tirade possibly being taken out on Snively was the most rewarding aspect he saw coming...if that was what he was being asked to do.

"What do you have in mind?" he asked, his voice still noticeably flat. It was just him.

Geoffrey took in a long breath and rehearsed his op-order from memory. "You'll be teaming up with Espio. He doesn't know it yet, but you two will be heading out to have a peek at this place, and take it out if at all possible."

Shadow shrugged his face. "Anything else?"

"Just need to wait for Espio, then I'll give you two the parameters fully."

They didn't have to wait long, Espio waltzing in and his first cold look at Shadow nearly had him waltzing back out. It couldn't have been that much more evident of how many "friends" Shadow had made in the course of his alliance with Robotnick.

"Count me out! I'd rather poke fun at Julie-Su right now than team with him!"

Geoffrey's brows rose to the heavens, but they stalled halfway when his temper flared up. "You're going–period! I don't care if 'ya have to keep a ten foot distance between each other the whole time, but you are going."

"Not if Knuckles has his say, I don't!" Espio fired off, still trying to leave through the open sliding door.

"He's not here, so that debunks you to my authority!" Geoffrey snarled, beginning to wonder if Shadow was far easier to negotiate with than a leading member of the Chaotix! Knuckles was truly the fail-safe with the bunch! "I need you and I need you bad, Espio."

Espio stole a hard glare at Shadow–who seemed to be enjoying the tantrum war–then dead squarely at St. John around his horn. "Nah, not that much!" And he started out the door again.

"It could concern Knuckles, Epee," St. John said as his final weapon of bartering. It did the trick; Espio stopped cold. "We haven't heard from him since he left yesterday, along with Sonic. What and where I am sending you to just might concern him getting back."

Espio's back was still to the HQ, his eyes steady, however, in front of him. "I'm listening," he said after a moment.

St. John bit down on his inner lip, wondering how the purple Chameleon would take the truth. "You need to work your disappearing act and gather some information for us. We've been following these transmissions under a new cipher for the past couple of days. We can't break it totally without the encryption, and I have this hunch it's at this place they've been going."

Espio turned around, his stern face hadn't changed. "So I've heard...but I refuse to go with him."

"Will you if it involves something about, _Chameleon_?"

Geoffrey's slow tone grabbed Espio at his throat and crushed it. "Go on," he swallowed with a painful desire.

"I can't say if it does involve your species, or if it's a codeword operation that means what it says, but so far, Knuckles, Sonic and Twan are missing, and the Prowers haven't bothered to call or return as well." The skunk sighed his plea after a breath. "We need the encryption programs to help bust this thing wide open. _We_ need you to do disappear for us to get it. Shadow knows his way around the bots and he can help sack a few for your benefit--" He eyed the hedgehog whose face was still blank but he apparently wasn't backing down. "–and blow the place up afterwards."

"_Just like what I did with the Beehive Coloney,"_ Espio seemed to groan within himself. He still was tortured about sending Charmey's home to the ground under a hive of explosives, but the Kingdom that was once his friend's had been under Eggman's rule and his bidding. It had to go...it was the Hive's last purpose. Coincidently, he pondered back, it was for Charmey in the end. He just hated pushing the button to do it.

"How we getting there?" Espio challenged, still on the bench debating whether to assist or not.

"I seem to have one more boogie at hand," Geoffrey replied earnestly. "Can you two contain yourselves?"

A single brow raised on the horned chameleon. "There goes the ten foot rule."

Shadow bit his lip this time trying not to laugh. "Don't worry, I don't bite...well, sometimes."

Espio raised his cheek as if he were to snarl. "What d'ya?...Slack-jawed!"

Whatever semblance of amusement Shadow had etched on his face dissipated with the drop of his arms from his chest. He was now possibly staring at one dead Chameleon if neither one of them could contain their contempt. But he bypassed any counter he thought of; Espio's remark was, at best, ill-conceived and it enlightened Shadow to the fact Espio really wasn't wanting to venture out with him. _"Sucks to be you!"_

"Cool it, both of you!" Geoffrey managed to wedge in. "Espio...I'm to the point I'm not really asking."

His last, glowering look at Shadow didn't mean good news on Geoffrey's part, however Espio's defeated slump had shown a different light. But he still looked regrettable, nonetheless. "Yea, sure! Just let me sign my will first."

"Hey," Shadow perked up, "my neck is in your hands too, pal, so let's just keep this puke mutual, if you don't mind." _"Well, not really,"_ he concluded to himself. _"I can just use the relief from around here for a change. Unless Aleutian comes back!" _That thought released a light smile across his lips about which only he would know the meaning.

Espio was not impressed about it...for that matter any of it. "Plan?"

"I'm leaving it up to you?" Geoffrey frowned, but in a good way. "The latest operations have gone down the tubes and knowing how you work, I'd rather leave it up to you instead of me dictating it. Honestly, I feel safer about it."

"And you should, Geoff!" Espio said frankly. "But thanks anyhow."

"Don't mention it," Geoffrey affirmed, though he knew Espio insulted him somehow. "How soon can you head out."

Espio turned to Shadow and then back to St. John. He had this thing about reading people, and from his standpoint, Shadow was in no hurry, which was marvelous being how he liked to run things. "Couple of hours. Darkness is my element and from what you said, and what I've been hearing, I'm going to need it."

"Very well," nodded Geoffrey, then stepping away from the pair. "Just don't kill yourselves until you get back!"

Without so much of a bow or a flying insult, Espio left Freedom HQ. After a minute of standing, perhaps to make sure he wouldn't catch up with him by coincidence, Shadow took his leave as well. The dull hum of Nicole's operating system and Sir Charles scratching pen and shifting slide rule was all that resonated from the room. As for Hershey, it was a relief.

Sitting beside her again, Geoffrey took up another apple slice and bit into it, munching on it before he looked tiredly into his wife's eyes. "See what I have to put up with!"

"HAHAA!" came Chuck's shouting laughter, startling St. John and Hershey. "M'boy, my points exactly!" The once robotosized hedgehog shifted round in his chair. "Try being around here over four years ago with Sonic and the rest bickering."

"I can only shudder, Sir Charles," Geoffrey seemed to have moaned.

"Ah," Chuck grunted dismissivily, "we still won, and even now I have high hopes for us."

"I do too, Charles," the skunk nodded, mostly at his wife and took another bite, "but the slowness has me worried. More lives can be saved if things would just move along a lot faster. Unfortunately, and I hate to say this, but I fault King Elias some."

Charles knew how much St. John loathed to put down his higher Arc, but alas, it was true about Elias. He was slow to grasp the concepts about commanding troops in the field. Honestly, Chuck wished Sally was at the forefront again with his nephew being the battering ram of her might. But King Max has such high hope for Elias that Charles felt, his Sire pushed them too far and put too much on the young heir.

"No Commander, we should only fault the war," Chuck reflected after a long moment. "After all, that is what is dragging on and burdening our friends and leaders."

Hershey lifted a small cup. "Absolutely."

Seeing the cup, Charles sighed and shook his head, leveling it back to the jumble of scratch paper and his slide rule. "By chance you can save some for me?"

"Of course, Chuck," Hershey replied.

"Thank you kindly..." he said furtively, stretching his neck one last time toward the screen, becoming hypnotized for a moment at the blinking red dot hovering over the Badlands while musing over his own quizzical notions:

"_Wonder what is so dang-gum important out there?"_

* * *

Everything seemed to have a radiant, brilliant white glow with this haze floating around the contours. The apartment buildings with their red and marble colors had it. The gathering people, mostly Echidna's, but other investigating species as well, had this blurred, white orb around them. It was as if the sun had grown hotter, drawing closer to Echindolopis. But it couldn't have been. Kripta looked to the sky, seeing the black ink of the pocket-zone in which the city was still lying in sanctuary from the ravages of nuclear fallout on the Floating Island. Reasons for the blinding light weren't explainable. Nor the burning pain in her hands and wrists. Nor the queasiness of fright churning in her stomach.

She was slumped on the curb of a sidewalk, she gathered from her out of body feeling. It seemed it was the notion she could make sense of. A desire to look over herself blossomed, finding her legs, clothed in a blue skirt that reached to her thighs with a shirt to match, sprawled out on the edge of the street. Across from her, in the street itself, was the ensuing calamity that she feared she had caused a short time ago. Two hover cars, one facing down the street towards the east with the second smashed in on its driver side, making a mutated T-bone impression at an angle. Their operators were already out, a darkly furred blue echidna pointing his dismay at a composed crocodile wearing a grey suit, his arms tucked under each other while adding his unmoved expression to his stiff posture. He wasn't buying what the accusing echidna was flapping about.

"You hurt?" said a male voice, concerned in tone but had an aura of authority mixed in behind it.

Her eyes never strayed from the combative echidna. "I'm fine," she shakingly replied on what felt like instinct rather than mere telling the truth. She couldn't fathom why her hands ached and stung.

"Alright. Just stay here and stay calm, please," came what seemed like a rehearsed reply.

A shadow passed over her, and she was late to gaze at the voice that seemed to show more care than the gathering onlookers. All she descried was his back, covered from a black polo-shirt with the excess tucked inside his belted jeans. His fur was brown, his dreads waving across his shoulders and collar as his stride took him across the two lane street. When he glimpsed to the left, watching for oncoming cars through the intersection, Kripta saw the muzzle of her savior, his eyes attuned to his surroundings with duty somehow speaking from his pupils and posture.

Over the bustling noises and the chorusing mumbles of the onlookers, Kripta could still hear him:

"Anyone hurt?"

The cantankerous dark blue echidna abruptly turned to face him. "No-thank-you very much–but my car is smashed! You know how much this costs. It's a Jupiter Special and–"

"I'm sorry for your misfortune, sir, but I am more concerned about the health and well-beings of you two, at the moment," interrupted the brown echidna evenly. His eyes, Kripta observed, darted from the other echidna's lavish sports car to the crocodile's "lemon," which had the driver-side door caved inward from the Jupiter's bumper's front corner. "Sir?" he questioned once he looked up to the crocodile's face.

"I'm alright," he replied benevolently.

"I was telling this gentleman here," pushed in, it seemed, the blue echidna, "that if it wasn't for that adolescent girl over there–" he waved an accusing finger towards Kritpa, "I could be back at the office and this gentleman here, at his interview."

"Uh-huh," frowned the brown echidna, his hands clasped over each other at his chest.

It was here Kripta was going to strive to stand. Past events lapsed in her quivering mind; a single step out from the sidewalk; the "walk" signal changing to her favor; a blur of red and black rounding beside her; the squealing of tires followed by aluminum and plastic crunching against each other. And now she was forcing herself to stand. To her aid, a firm hand wrapped around her arm, however the tug wasn't filled with kindness.

Neither was her brother's voice.

"Kritpa! What happened? You okay?" He spun her to have his wide eyes meet hers! "I told you to wait for me!"

Anzio's rapid questions came out to her as riddles to her racing mind. Kripta tried to answer, but her big-brother's brutish stance and gaze robbed her the last of her strength. Her eyes began to fill with tears, but she fought desperately not to cry.

"Hey!" shouted the brown echidna's authoritative voice from behind them. "Unhand her, now!"

Anzio's face twisted to malice. "On what authority?"

"The Echidna Security Team," came the echidna's approaching reply.

"Where's your uniform?" Anzio spat back, almost as a taunt. Kritpa turned her head to see the echidna closing in on her, his back straight as a wall, his face leaning towards indignance.

"I'm off duty." Under prediction of the next question, Kripta watched him bring out a black wallet that was much thinner, opened it, and shoved his shield and I.D. card towards her brother before closing it. "Now you mind telling me why you have your hand around her arm?"

"She's my sister, sir," Anzio said, releasing his grip some on Kripta, but still holding on to her.

He nodded his head, but shifted his eyes to her. "Do you have your Echindolopis Residency card with you, milady?" he asked, giving out a resemblance of a smile that eased her.

"Ye–yes sir, I do," she replied shyly.

"Alright, you'll need to produce that when an officer comes to take the report. I have that _charming_ jerk-off and the other gentleman getting their hover-car license, registration, insurance, and Residency cards as well."

"You didn't cause this, did you, Kripta?" Anzio asked shrewdly.

The off-duty officer's eyes brightened in defense. "Hey, lay-off, man. She just about got plastered by that reject _flying_ a red light and not yielding the right-of-way. He's already trying to blame her for it."

"He isn't going to sue us, is he?" Anzio put in, letting his sister go.

"You've got me. I was behind your sister when he executed his bad driving habits. He's pretty much buying the croc a new car."

Anzio sighed and eyed his sister. The wail of a police hover-car started to echo nearby. "Al'right then, sis. I guess I'm sorry."

"It's okay Anzy," Kripta whispered wetly. "I know you're trying to watch over me."

"What big brothers are for, right sir," offered the echidna.

"Oh, with her skipping mind. Someone has to." Anzio looked to the echidna with a smug grin. "Thank you, sir."

"Don't..." he said, shoving his hands up as if to shove away the gratitude. "It's my duties; it's my job."

"My hands are burning," Kripta said seemingly out of the blue, under a coy voice.

"You did take a fall, milady," the echidna said.

"My eyes, too." She waved her head some, squinting her eyes in hopes the radiant haze would disappear and the world's pigmentation would return. "Everything seems to be blurry."

The crying siren was becoming closer. "I'll ask for a medic when the cavalry shows."

Kripta opened her eyes, the bright orbs still encrusted her brother and the brown echidna, but his smile seemed to dull it some. Or was it the comfort she was finding with it? Safety was emiting from him, like a net woven with caring arms. It was as if she expected it to come from him; as if she had embraced it once before.

"Your name, sir," she asked, fishing a smile inspite of her ill-stomach.

His mouth moved; but his voice was shrieking; distorted:

"_SEEKKKzzzzzzELLLIeeerrZzZZZZ!!!!_"

Kripta stepped back, bringing her arms close to her chest as her face shattered from a smile to a harrowing gasp. "WHAT!"

Again, the echidna's mouth opened. She was expecting him to say his name. She knew what it was but the same distorted, demonic voice seemed to smear from his lips. "_SAAAZZzzzEEEeQQQiizzzzZZz"_

Anzio roamed into her sight. He too opened his mouth but nothing came as sound.

The twinge in her hands burned more explosively. Her vision didn't seem to get brighter but duller, watching the buildings get swallowed in the blackness of the pocket-zone, watching her brother froth away like fog, and thus, with the brown echidna. She slammed her eyes shut, feeling needles prodding at her retina and locking her eyelids under the immense pain she felt inching its way through her nerves. Then a cold numbness laced her body, producing spasms in her legs and arms as uncontrollable shivers that were so violent her queasiness in her stomach became the least of her excruciating pains. Under the pressure of her shut eyes they began to tear, tracing down her broad face towards the back of her neck and dripping off to the metal table she was shackled upon. It was the cold aluminum across her bare body that brought her back to the horror that had become her reality.

"_KIIlllllZZZzzEEERREeeeEr–_"

The snap of a switch was the call to lift her eyes open. The abrupt silence of the loud distorted sound was the beckoning signal to turn her head over to the right. Two bulky frames, bearish in figure, but colorless in the glimmering dark, stood mere feet from her. With the blurriness of her eyes, she could make out a third slender figure sliding between them, caseous in his movements.

She wanted to moan her pain. She wanted to cry at her nightmare. But Kripta in all of her torments lay motionless on the table with the cords from her hands, and sensors pressed against her head and chest like meshed strings concealing the identity of her eyes. It was only when she winced that a round shaped hulk strode beside her.

"Status?" it said to the slender figure. It was the tech-bot the Eggbot was addressing.

"The voice boxes on both are faulty," explained the tech-bot with it's own shrilling voice box. Kripta watched its skeletal metal head rotate to its right at the Eggbot. "They can't relay their programmed orders."

"It won't matter. The program in itself is running flawlessly, and the purpose for them is silence. Hydriodic actuators?"

"They simulate the wind," the tech-bot relayed.

"How long before the last of the tests?"

"They're done. We can power them up now."

"Do it," the Eggbot replied without a moment's computing. "We are to send them off within the next few hours. Master wants them fully powered up with elapse time to make sure the program is running smoothly."

It was as if it were a command, but unspoken. The twin dark figures rose up to what Kripta could see as full height and took two steps forward in cadence, standing over her like ominous skyscrapers in the darkest of cities. The tech-bot wove between them, triggering sensors and pushing buttons, she observed in her stupor, before he stepped back from them to stand rigid and waiting.

An arc of violet-blueish light connected the left arm to the neck, then an additional series licked at the frame to the right. She could hear the electric impulse over the ambient noise of the machines in the building, becoming louche as more of the visible, purple current seemed to play at the chassis. Be spelled, she watched the second figure began this lightning ritual, the reflective glow adding more texture to the room with its metallic inhabitants.

And it was the flickers that engulfed her senses with a soiling fear. Her eyes weren't keen, but they could still see the design; the pushed chest, arms incased in shielding that covered all internal workings, leaving cracks and lines for movement. Legs built like titan mammoths, they too were enshrouded with mystery of how they operated. But it was the mask that seemed to maul her sight when she gazed upon it. Resembling the skeleton head of the her nightmarish captor, it was green with black blotches, its eyes colorless and hardly noticeable in their shadow crevasses. There was no glimmering smile, its lips concealed under a vented mask–

The electric arcs ceased; leaving the machines still rigid in their stance. Kripta swallowed hard, but still found her throat thick with spit and mucus. And when she blinked to force more moisture around her eyes, she swore she was losing her sight all together. But no! What she was seeing was real. _"It's a devilish prank," _she thought. But it was the weapon that was transforming to be the nightmare.

Coming as a ebbing tide, the textures and contour of the machines began to vanish like rippling water. Their arms flickered in and out of existence, followed by their legs, leaving their chests and heads floating on air until they too began to blot out of sight. The head on the left was the first to vanish from the room, leaving the backdrop of several duplicates of itself behind a row of overhanging, weak florescent lights. The last bot left her frightened eyes as well; but with its dark eyes staring into hers!

"The subject's awake!" decried the tech-bot, its cyclopsed head turned over its shoulder after the phantom machine's head alerted it.

The fight to resist and to spring up was meet with force from the shackles at her legs and abdomen. Kripta, in her fight, suddenly felt the cold hand of the Eggbot wrap around her throat as she squirmed more out of terror and anguish. It held her down, pressing hard on her to the point she feared her wind-pipe would be crushed, drowning her in her own blood.

"Put her back in coma-status and render her brain dead!" the Eggbot hissed.

"Computed!"

Buttons being were pushed, initiaing a wink of reprieve; the burning torture in her hands ceased only for the moment as the cold liquid was injected through the prongs in her hands to ice its way through her bloodstream. The coming fog was quick, filling her eyes with the last shred of tears before her mind succumbed to the hypnotic concoction. It was her voice she last heard, recalling the peace she had once met out in the street that had brought her comfort from her ordeal, and who she wanted to save her in this moment of despair.

His tan muzzle was the last thing she could see...

"_Christian...Christian..."_

* * *

"Christian!"

The sharp whisper was enough to break his slumped, encrusted shell, leaning on the far wall, though still keeping his arms folded tightly across his opened shirt chest. He let a side glance stray over his shoulder at Lemeans. The leopard sat almost impatiently forward in his rickety chair, drawing a look that was devoid of any of his charming pleasantries, balancing both hands and his torso over his dark-stained cane. Christian felt a cataclysm of rage and loathing spread fiercely through his temple and nervous system just with the mere sight of Lemeans' pushy demeanor. The dark alcove of despair he felt himself hiding in, as if to search for Kripta in it and bring her back to him, crumbled instantly and he felt more alone now than when he felt himself go in.

"Are you in this conversation or not," Lemeans interjected, sweeping his alert eyes around the shield of bodies in front of him, however still able to spy through Knuckles and Mikhail at the gloomy brown echidna.

A squint to push reality back into perspective and to squeeze the salt of sweat from his eyes. "Sorry," Christian breathed apologetically. "Just watching for any unwanted guest." And really that was his current job, eyeing through the cracks of the walls and watching for passing shadows that were engineered from blueprints and not evolution. Even the shade of the hut only held in the stifling dry heat, triggering everyone's sweat glands to rain over their fur and open blotches of skin. No one was without their mouth open to breathe, but not panting. Silence was still key in the current operation of becoming liberated.

Retreating back to the waiting looks after an affirming nod to Christian, Lemeans began to rehash their next move:

"In the event we get burned," he said, his benign twinkle in his eyes and voice coming round again, "concentrate on our current guards and smash a hole through the fence–but that is _if_ we get burned."

"I still 'zhink we should stay put'z," Antoine fussed beside Sonic. Both hedgehog and coyote were standing, unswayed in their posture and demeanor, to the right of Lemeans in the half-moon circle around him.

"Our safety is dwindling here by the hour," Lemeans countered.

Sonic snorted. "Tell us something we don't know, kitty cat. I just like to know what odds you came up with that gives us the go ahead to '_relocate_?'"

"It's on a hunch," answered the leopard. "And besides, the schoolhouse was built for our winter season here. No cracks through the walls. Better to conspire, you might say."

"Ah, great," Knuckles frowned as his eyes rolled above his crossed arms. Antoine's boundless duty to Sally's orders were becoming a wise thought process. One, Knuckles kicked himself in the tail, now, for that he didn't listened to. "So who's running interference, again?"

"Us," Mikhail said boisterously, slapping Knuckles on the shoulder with confidence. Knuckles looked at him with an open-mouthful of surprise and incredulous eyes burning with sweat. Mikhail returned it with a hurt expression. "Come on, echidna. No fear, eh! Me and Christian...good team, we are."

Knuckles wandered his bewildered and reserved face around to Lemeans. "Maybe we should just do this now–"

"No...sorry, but the camp isn't all informed yet," Lemeans said, cutting Knuckles off. "I'm letting some loose lips be out in the cold until the last minute; willing of course, that other lips stay hushed about you all." The room's eyes, even Christians', were upon him now. They weren't all keen. "Look, as before, Leo gives us the go-ahead from the north block of huts, Christian makes sure it's safe to round this one to the open side of the south fence, and Mikhail guides the lot of us to our destination."

"It's ludicrouz, Monsieur!" Antoine snapped, stepping forward to the leopard.

"I couldn't agree more," added Christian from afar. "Make the call, get the transports here, and bug out! This waiting is only going to get others killed, _Lemeans_, instead of saving!"

"Haste makes waste, Christian."

Knuckles stepped forward now, still keeping his back tall all the while cocking his head maliciously. "Like the day before?"

"My point exactly!" Christian snapped, coming up to back his Guardian in their upheaval towards Lemeans and his shrewdness. "You haven't been forthcoming to us before, and I can't understand why all of this _now_!"

"For the good of our lives, Christian!" The leopard leaned back, inhaled deeply, and swayed his eyes to his embittered audience. "There is a lot that goes on in this camp, and the secrecy has to remain in order to keep the living, _living_."

"Then how are we supposed to trust you if all you do is a run a game in the shadows?" Sonic announced.

"It's up to you," Lemeans growled dryly, looking up with a cold expression.

"Really," Christian frowned, then turned to Knuckles. "Okay, then...I trust my Guardian."

The brass nub on the leopards cane snapped the wood under Lemeans' leaning posture. Christian spun his attuned eyes to the cracks of the walls for listening threats, while Knuckles did like wise, but was looking for an opening to rid his strain at his torment. The room, though, was still and silent onwards. "You listen and you listen well...all of you," Lemeans' snarled after a still pause. "I will not take this, nor hastily made plans to get us free. Many of times I have seen this done in my previous _life_ and all it did was get people killed and children orphaned. I will not stand for it here, and I promised myself I wouldn't. So if the muscle we've needed here for sometime comes here and goes their own way, half-cocked, and in the process disrupts my plans to get_EVERYONE_ safely out of here, then so be it. I will do my best to undermine your little soiree. Get me?" Unwavering eyes were his crude answer. "So fine. If you don't trust me, you don't trust me. Good! Then the whole camp is dead! Blood is on your hands, and all you've done is mimicry my operation to help others."

"I don't mean to crush your little fanfare, pal," Sonic interjected, "but we've pulled a heck of a lot Mobians out of trouble more times than I can count."

A raised brow. "I know, Sonic. Much doesn't pass my feline ears about you and your deeds, but I've helped get intel for staged operations to save others as well. You know how risky that is? I stand–well–sit before you now, because I used my uncanny talent of patience and didn't risk a hair on anyone's throat and neck. I could've been killed more times than I can remember just because I did hold my breath and I did stick to my prudent planning to help the ones help the others.

"Now if you're willing to listen, we can pull our experiences together and get this one pickle wrapped up right. No one killed. No one orphaned. Everyone healthy at the end." He pointed with his cane to Christian. "And you, _officer_. Doesn't your duties involve what I just said."

"Does it matter," Christian fired off.

Lemeans nodded his head. "It does because I need you. We all need you. Misplace your anger about them taking Kripta away and place your sworn duties to serve and protect this camp at the forefront." He then eyed Knuckles. "You too, sir. You–all of you can do a great deal if you listen to what I have in mind."

"Which is?" Sonic asked.

Lemeans leaned to the side and stole a glance at a wide opening in the wall. His voice was hoarse and quick. "In about five minuets, if we stop our bickering, we can get to the schoolhouse before our window closes and I can tell you further and with diagrams. That is if you all can trust me?"

"Say what!?" Knuckles jumped, looking back to Christian.

"Like I said; there is more that goes on here. I promise you I will explain more, but not around these walls."

Glances were exchanged, Knuckles seeking out Sonic's and not Christian's. Sonic shrugged with his eyes widely. Given his look, the Guardian had a funny feeling they were about to get some sun.

"Let's juice this place!"

"Perfect. Let me step out, get a situation report and soon enough we can be safer."

"How?" Christian inquired while still keeping tabs on the outside. "They are just as likely to search the schoolhouse as here."

"Yes, but it would be the last place they search if what I think is going to happen, does. Mikey is right. Their programs have become too predictable and it's now in our favor. But we need to keep it that way."

And on that, with a sharp breath to summon his muscles, Lemeans planted his cane to the floor and used what upper-body strength he could muster to stand up from his chair. Swaying over his permanently injured right leg, he buttoned his shirt and strolled out like anyone with a cane would; tapping and limping while closing the door carefully with Christian taking up a position behind it. When things seemed to be calm after the passing of several seconds, Sonic stepped in the way of Knuckles' view of Christian.

And for once–or at least one of the few times Knuckles has seen it, and not since over two years ago with Sally presumed dead–Sonic's expression had nothing simulating his gassing humor. "You 'buyin this, Red? I seriously want to douse him in catnip and throw him to Mickey here."

Breathing his indifference and the choice option of telling Sonic to can-it while he thought things through, Knuckles eased a mitt out from his folded arms and made a face of mild discontent. "He's made points, Sonic, but I don't like it anymore than you...for once."

"Ohh...I have your side then, eh?"

"Just shut-up, Blue!" Knuckles snuffed in annoyance, and turned his back towards the rear of the hut.

Antoine grimaced while searching for his wrecked tunic on the bed and said, "He actz like 'eh spy, if you azked, 'moah."

"I have this gut feeling he is," Christian allowed, his head still towards the door, shoulder leaning against it. Knuckles took note of a small knothole he was possibly peering through. "Question is...who's side–if any? All we know is he could be going for a few bots now."

"I doubt it, _Officer_," Knuckles said. This got Christian's attention from the door. "This guy maybe a jerk–"

"Got that right, Red!"

Knuckles shook his head with a snort at Sonic's interruption. "He maybe a jerk, but he hasn't told about us, yet."

"And your reasoning for zhis?" Antoine asked, spinning around with his tunic clutched in his right hand.

"It hasn't been too clean to get in, and they could've rounded us up in our sleep. But they didn't."

What Knuckles didn't add was their conversation from the morning, but the Guardian was still trying to digest that as well. Lemeans maybe shrewd, but his answers amidst the pressure they all put him under had enough passion behind it that wasn't lacking nor abundant to be suspicious. Knuckles had seen those particular cat-and-mouse games played out with the Legion and Robotnick's minions, and the fat-man himself when he played on Knuckles to get at Sonic. Lemeans exhumed none of this, and Knuckles saw it as the bonafides in his experienced-built conclusion. And with it, like the rest, he waited for the leopard's limping return.

There wasn't a special knock nor a whispered password. Christian with a suddenness that caught Knuckles', Sonic's, and Antoine's eyes, pulled the door open and Lemeans tapped his way inside as fast as he could, sweating profusely. He turned his head behind him and watched Christian shut the door with a quick gentleness before he turned back to the standing trio. Mikhail held his post by two bunks.

"We're set, but we need to move fast. Leo's been in position a lot longer than he's been needed, and I think a moment more might arouse the bots."

"What about this window?" Sonic politely snapped.

A curt nod. "The bots are fixing themselves up for a blind spot in about a minute. But it isn't without it's discrepancies. We've been watching this pattern for months and used it to shuffle some of my 'watchful-eyes' around during the day." He turned once more to Christian. "Let me know when he passes."

When the brown echidna nodded and went back to his attentive observation, Lemeans continued. "Once this bloke passes, we get out the door. The one we really have to worry about is the one walking towards us, but he should turn around before the other rounds the fence line and can see us. At least that is how it's supposed to work out–"

"I see him," Christian whispered.

Lemeans' eyes jumped in alert and waved his hand as a come-on to Knuckles, Sonic and Antoine. They all obeyed and gingerly sprinted to the door, huddling around it with Christian slammed against it, and Lemeans taking a position behind Antoine with Mikhail behind him. And to Knuckles pounding heart, Christian slid the door open. The mid-afternoon sun rolled in like a tidal-wave, covering everything with a blinding yellow light, and engulfing the former EST Officer as he stepped out the doorway. Knuckles followed but paused for a moment until Christian waved his hand behind his back by his tail.

The heat slammed at his fur and felt like it had singed his skin under it. But he pushed the burning discomfort aside, and checked behind him that Sonic was in fact following. Christian halted and peered around the corner of the hut. Knuckles did likewise and balled his fist as he watched the brown echidna study the unknown threat to the east. He could see Christian bobbing his head slightly, counting steps or something, or perhaps anticipating the bot's turn.

Sonic, however, was covering Knuckles' back, his shoes dug in and posed to propel himself like a plasma bolt ready to be discharged from it's capacitors to rip a machine up in a blur of blue fur and spines. A mother and a child past, both foxes Sonic could see through the x-ray heat as they passed down the last row of huts to the north.

"Go!"

Knuckles skirted behind Christian on his fast whisper, Sonic backpedaling with his hand on the hut as a guide for when he needed to turn. Once he did, he could see the back of the Eggbot walking the perimeter of the twin fence line, its weapon a broadsword and its arms swinging as it marched to the corner of the boundaries. Antoine was keeping up beside him, Nicole at the ready to be flipped open.

And all of a sudden, Sonic slammed into the back of Knuckles, coming to a dead, and frightening stop.

Knuckles nearly toppled over Christian, but his strengthened legs held true to the ground and took Sonic's clumsiness. He had the urge to look back and deck the hedgehog, but the roving bot walking east, away from them, was the focal point of his attention. What had made Christian stop? _"What the heck are you doing?"_

To answer the question, one had to be at Christian's standpoint. And he was breathing just as hard, his adrenaline charging him with fear as the rest. Not only could the bot behind them turn to the north and instantly spot Sonic and the rest just with a mere side-glance of it's sensors, but the bot in front was closing in on it's perimeter to turn completely around and take one good view of the whole line of Freedom Fighters. But what made him stop his train of muscle and speed was Lemeans' grey-furred _hare_compatriot shaking his head violently as he too was peering around the corner of a hut to the east of the last line, and one short of the schoolhouse they were attempting to get to.

Knuckles looked behind him. The bot was a few yards from his pivot point. Struggling his eyesight further to see Sonic, he clenched his fists tighter and brought them up past his waist upon seeing the blue hedgehog take a charged bead on the Eggbot. If anything were to explode, it was going to be Sonic. Knuckles would have to bolt to the bot ahead of him to give anyone cover and advantage. It was a long sprint, and one he feared he wouldn't make–

Christian disappeared around the corner in a blinding jolt. Knuckles labored under his feet and pumped his fists now in order to keep up. Sonic followed after a curt delay in awareness, with 'Twan dashing behind him. Lemeans, however, kept to his limping pace, watching casually as the Eggbot in front made his turn a moment too late to catch the coyote's tail vanishing between the final row of huts. Mikhail supplied the second half of the screen. Both leopard and beagle strolled side-by-side and turned the corner, his eye falling back to the west and nodding as the second roving bot made it's turn, after which, he took to be a caring Mobian in helping an old, disabled cat to his destination.

To both of their jumping hearts and charging nerves, Antoine leaped through the door of the Schoolhouse with Leo behind him just as the oncoming Eggbot came into view of the gauntlet of deteriorating structures.

"One problem wrapped up, 'ah Mickey?"

"Of many, my friend. Now what's for supper?" the beagle asked as he followed Lemeans inside and shut the door.

The leopard smiled broadly. "Machines. But we need to bait them first."

Crutching under his own power, Lemeans made his way between the aisles of benches to the green chalkboard that still had the white stains of previous lessons. Taking a piece of chalk with his right hand and dubiously supporting himself over his cane with the other, he drew a square, then, another around it, placing two large dots to the left side and an additional one to the right.

"Since you came absent of a plan to get out, I figure I might share mine," he said, still scribbling on the board. "What was said last night about baiting a few bots could be the key to our initial break out–follow me?"

Lemeans saw Sonic and Knuckles nod. Christian stood firm by the door, with Mikhail and Antoine finding a few benches to collapse in. A lasting smile was quickly diminished when the leopard brought his attention back to board. There he drew lines that represented the organization of huts as a block. Bold dots came next, two as roving bots in the fence line, three positioned in the guard towers, and lastly, the surplus he couldn't account for which were unpredictable to be in a fixed location around the camp, scattered outside the perimeter.

Knuckles judged all this without Lemeans having to say a word.

"We can cream the guard towers at the front," the Guardian said, his tone firm but low. "The rest is going to be one heck of a brawl."

Lemeans winked his right eye and, again, smiled. "Here," he said, drawing more markings in the blank spaces to the North and West of the block of huts, "we have our water-spigot for wash–believe it or not, Eggman has given us ambient amount of water to thrive with–however–" he pointed the chalk from the north end where he etched two wavy lines, to the west where the last guard tower stood and a crude estimation of bots in the rear, "–I have to say, you are correct, that our captors have spread themselves out. But on the bright side...they are spread out."

Sonic added his qualm thought. "Why don't you add us to the list!"

"I would, but you didn't let me take into a account the camp as a whole."

"Say what?" Christian blurted out. "If you haven't noticed,_Lemeans_, but our three new-comers to the camp aren't dragging their knuckles on the ground for food and support to stay up–no offense Guardian."

Knuckles shook his head, showing Christian none was taken, and within himself, chuckling at the former EST officer's statement. He couldn't be further from the truth. And on that note of sarcasm, Knuckles realized how much work Sonic had snuck in, along with them, to stage the coming escape. He didn't mind breaking in to liberate the oppressed, but siding odds would have been more welcomed. _"But, hey, I did say I'd party too!"_

"So what's the camp going to do?" Knuckles firmly asked. He felt uneasy about the coming answer.

"My intention," Lemeans elaborated, "is to keep us looking glum. As long as we don't attack attention from Eggman, and wait this coming dread out, we should be alright."

"That still doesn't answer my question, Lemeans," Knuckles put in under a glower. "Looking pitiful has been your job from the get-go. But as Christian put it, you all an't looking up to snuff on running, much less fighting."

"And I realize that, but believe me; they will bolt on a moments notice from the impending doom. Get this through your heads! We are not as weak as we look–"

"You can't be counting on a finial hoo-ra of strength to get us out,_Lemeans_?" Christian snapped, his arms unfolding and bringing up a shooting arm. "Com'on! Get a life, leopard. You're asking way to much from these people. We have mother's with children here, and I'm quite sure their mother's instincts are going to get in the way."

"How many children are in ze camp?" Antoine inquired, his stomach pitching from the forgotten revelation.

Still air lingered in the schoolhouse before an answer came forth.

"Eleven," Christian said bleakly. "When I got here, there were fifteen."

"And when I came, we had twenty," Lemeans offered. "Not to mention all the still borns." He then sighed at the floor, only lifting his eyes when he seemed to have found his strength where he lost it. "Just give me your patients, please. I can give you all a screen and security without getting burned. I have David running around getting some last scraps of intelligence and voicing some warnings of mine to a few trusting helpers...and they are giving their all for this. We know the jig is coming, and I am hoping our send off is as predicable as I can fathom."

"How's that?" Sonic trumped.

"Like they did to those few souls two days ago. Line us up and slaughter us down." Lemeans face cringed some, but his charming feature never left him. "I swear Eggman has a voyeurism about that."

"Oh, yea!" Sonic tittered. "Why do you think he's single? Shoot, he had to make his own girl just to hang out with him."

"Aside from his rotten pleasures on us," Lemeans said, shifting his weight for better comfort under his leg and cane. "I'm begging on hope that his bots will also line-up for the send-off."

Sonic's eyes brightened, almost glistened with moisture if the room that had nothing molecular of humidity inside. "Oh, please tell me I know where you're going with this."

"Like I said, _Sir Sonic_, I have heard much about you, and your charitable deeds to the planet." He then turned his cane upon Knuckles and Christian. "And I might add you two aren't the first echidnas I have met in my travels. I know when your kind has a passion and set purpose on something, you lot stick to it till the very end...no matter the out come. The whole camp is counting on this. Our lives depend on your strength and resolve to see this through."

If the leopard's speech was a rallying cry to Knuckles and Christian–especially to Christian–it worked.

"You got it," Knuckles affirmed over his crossed arms and straightened tail.

"Marvelous!" Lemeans almost hailed, but kept his voice in control.

"Am I still getting pulse-launcher?" Mikhail sang.

A quick nod. "I plan on it. Plus their swords and plasma weapons, if they aren't fixed to their arms. Once the show begins we need to be on the ball about sacking the rest and pilfering their weapons as fast as we can."

Antoine spoke up. "What about our exit. I don'z like ze idea of running towardz ze the enemy for an ezcape!"

"Not to worry, 'Twan," Sonic plied, sweeping his hand across his chest with a cocky grin fixed on his face. "Of all the bets we're throwing out, mine is on me. Their attention _will_ be on me once the show starts. You know, my fans love me and I_ just _can't get away from 'em."

Knuckles snorted hard enough that Lemeans worried the walls might've caved outwards. "Don't flatter yourself, blue!"

"Precisely," Lemeans said with serious eyes. "You may be our surprise diversionary but Eggman does have his numbers."

"I'll cover the escape then," Knuckles said softly. "'Twan, where do you want to be in all this?"

"Running with ze resz. But I can fillet my share...and someone needs to coordinate ze pick-up and ze lead."

"Lead the way then," Sonic quipped. "When do we make that call, by the way?"

Lemeans delayed his answer after a quick thought. "A few hours at the most. In fact, I need to show my face some and prepare my next screen for you. I hope you don't mind singing?"

"As long as the music is good," Sonic grinned.

"Can you dance to nursery rhymes?"

Sonic's mouth gaped, and Knuckles chuckled at the dupe look. "Schools out, eh?"

"Need an excuse to keep you in here, and not them checking this place out," Lemeans replied. Picking himself up from his hunch, he limped across the hut and managed a smile. "Mikhail...Christian, if you please accompany me. Our absence has been long enough."

"In a 'sec, Lemeans," Christian festered. "I want to get this all nailed away."

The leopard stopped and beamed a suspicious expression towards Christian. A moment slipped by with his leaning posture on his cane as his gaze ran through Christian like a dull knife. "Don't be long," he finally manipulated across his lips. "Mikhail, lets go. I need your eyes for an escape route."

"_Da_!" said the beagle and he was soon at the door, opening it, and awaiting Lemeans to creep out while holding a blank look.

Once the door was shut, Christian glanced at Sonic then Knuckles. Antoine had become a figment of his imagination. "How fast can they get here?"

"You're_that_ worried?" Sonic fronted.

"Okay, let me put it this way: can they get here before the Oil Field reserves show up and finish the job?" Christian growled, throwing his pointing hand up and towards the docking port to the east.

"We've battled worse, Christian," Knuckles eased, but his tone was sharp.

"Yea, but we haven't. Sure the Legion is bad, but we _aren't_ the EST and only half of us are trained. Now is the equation a little more defined?"

"Oui, along with my reservations," Antoine said crossly.

"So what do we do?" Sonic said, shrugging his arms. "We can't devise another plan since _he_ is putting things in motion."

"Yeah, but we can wrap ours around his and make it more realistic," Knuckles confirmed.

"Zee, the echidna zhinks better than you, Sonic," Antoine flustered brightly, jamming his finger into the bathos hedgehog's chest. "What are your ideaz, Knuckles?" the coyote asked snidely.

"We brawl...simple as that! We crunch as many as we can and run like there is no tomorrow."

Antoine shot Knuckles a gawking, bewildered look. "You're kidding me, right? Zhat your plan?"

Sonic smirked and jabbed his elbow into the coyote's left side. "I'm not looking so shabby now, eh 'Twan."

Knuckles waved his head and turned his back. Honestly he didn't like it either. Calling in the cavalry before the beat down started, getting the right bots to walk into a trap and take their weapons after ripping them apart, and further more, trusting everything to a leopard who seemed more senile than sane and quite possibly deserved a wrap-around-sport-coat than a cane. It all made Knuckles' head hurt, and enough so to make him reach with his hand to comfort it. The rolling caress offered comfort he wanted, but didn't soothe the situation, of course, however it did produce one minor thought which daunted him for some time. _"What if Aleutian were here? What would he say and do?"_

He answered his question while Antoine and Sonic started to bicker behind him. Nothing. Aleutian was too far down in his depression to think accurately. After all, he did turn the Plunger straight into an oncoming torpedo over a week ago.

"_...It has been over a week since I met him. Boy, time has gone by and I still feel our distance hasn't come any closer than it should be. But he's gone again. Will I see him? I want to, but he does need Dad, and Dad does need him."_

He took to a bench, still facing the chalkboard, staring hard at Lemeans' scribbles. Locke's teachings seemed to come from it. The board wasn't the trigger as was the mere thought of his own schooling with his father. _"Think outside the box," _he had once told him, and what he took almost as a religion. _"Look at things far and wide before doing the simplest of chores. Things may become simpler before you know it."_

And so Knuckles did, supporting his chin with his hands while supporting his arms with his legs, he looked towards the floor, ignored the grumbles from Sonic and Antoine from behind him, and hoped Julie-Su would somehow be intertwined in this delusional mess.

But worthy of its cause.

* * *

Whew! I hope this was enternaning more than it was long and tedus. I didn't mean for it to be this long, but it grew that way. I also tried to bring past occuanses from the comics into play, and will try to do more in the coming chapters for better refrences--and making this plausable.

Please tell me how I am doing, and please don't be shy to make suggestions in story telling, grammer, and orginization. If I loose you--and not because of the lengths--tell me so. I'm not doing my job if I loose you all on something.

Next chapter is shorter...but warming.

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	29. Absolute Wants

* * *

Oh, how things are looking better! Another chapter up and two more to go on the chopping as soon as I get to them. But it also means I'm running behind. Doing the next drafts now, but as always, hard going at times. But with this chapter came help with the one I'm currently working on. A lot of times I need to go back to some of my older chapters just to keep the same mood, and also to make sure I don't reitter things already said. 

But that said; this has become one of my favorites, but was also one with too many mistakes. I was trying out some new things, but my editor marked them out and pretty much said, "try again." However, the clean-up was it and it looks better.

Sara...I give credit to thee for this chapter. You've expressed your fondness many times with how you like this story just by me revisiting the old comics in their context, and bring out things we've all wondered about, but never really saw. So in effect, this is your chapter. I needed something like this as a filler and as something to pull on peoples heartstrings while pulling Locke and Aleutian closer. I really hope you enjoy this one as I did writing. For me, when I was done, I felt myself come away with a different point of view then how I started this chapter. The title of this chapter is taken from another John LeCarre' novel called, "Absolute Friends." But this has a different meaning which I hope you all will grasp.

This chapter also comes on a special occasion. Aleutian has turned one year old as of last month, and what better to disclose that then by this chapter. I'm steadily bringing him back; and he deserves it.

Now to the disclaimer...uge: I own nothing in the way of the original cast of the game and comics.

Please enjoy.

(Yes, Sara, PM means personal message)

* * *

**Absolute Wants**

By: Mauser

* * *

Green was trapped underneath the surface of the stream. Aalge, waving like fine fur atop the rocks with every heave, punch and thus, reprieved of strength from the undercurrents that flowed north and west rather than south. The beauty that resembled waves of thick grass in a gale with the absent of its radiant glow, Locke saw much of the Master Emerald in the gliding tributary. What he at first thought was a hollow he and Aleutian were venturing down had become a sort of pause for recreation and rest in a somber valley. The last hour of their walk had fallen to silence due in part of the terrain becoming more obtuse and steep, allowing more of their oxygen to be used for their muscles and not their vocal cords. And as they traveled higher, the air became thin, as expected, but as Locke understood, and wondered if Aleutian did as well, that he as a race of Echidna's from Angel Island had over time had gotten used to such high elevations and could breathe the air without struggling to do so. 

Thus, he could stand comfortably and gaze at his son's back, gently breathing, watching every detail of Aleutian's shoulder blades move under his fur and skin, as he worked his arms in refilling his water-bladder in the stream. His jacket and pack were beside him on the grass, for there wasn't anything in the way of mud, more so of fresh green grass and leaves. The stream coasted in an abstract manner along the shore under a ledge, of which, Aleutian was looking down upon while squatting on the balls of his feet.

As Locke peered up to judge the other side of the small shore, he echoed his voice in his head for the fire ant on his right shoulder to hear:

"_They grow so fast_," he said with fondness reverberating soundly. It seemed to him only yesterday, at times, that he was holding not an infant Knuckles in his arms, but Aleutian. His own image came back to him warmly, as the current day. The _little guy_ kicking as he slept in his arms. The fits of coughs as with any new born calling him to get up from beside Lara-Le to make sure he was alright. The few nights he rocked him back to sleep afterwards. His first word..._mommy_. If destiny and duty hadn't been the interference, Locke was sure the family wouldn't have been broken but would have become like any other–a house to keep watch over and not worried with a war; but instead, what's for dinner.

Alas, the white crest on his chest, like his forefathers and now his sons who also had it etched in their fur, said otherwise of what he could hold as a family. He lightly shook his head, pushing away the thought that _their_ birthrights were burdens of his wishes and wants. It was criminal to think it. No...the crime was crouched down before him. _He_ should have been there for him.

And to his despair, he was learning about his son through his blemishes and tears, when the current teachings should've been brought out under much simpler times and simpler ages. But he smiled through it all. Aleutian had become an Echindian. Flesh, fur and blood was the testament to this image Locke saw. It was Aleutian's never dying determination to strive for what he asked of him, watching him willingly cast away a life just by purging his hands of his guns, and now, upon seeing him after yesterday, wanting what he ran away from to become. Locke was absolutely sure Aleutian had grown to be what he was born to be. _Him!_

A Guardian.

He just never knew it...but he was always committed to it.

Archimedes lad silent, for he saw the thoughts rolling through Locke's mind on his face, and thus it was fitting he didn't speak. He too was entranced at the laboring Guardian before them.

Locke thought to speak, controlling his voice so as to not break the fragile tranquility of the forest around them, but he thought better of it. And to his reprieve and delight, it was Aleutian who broke the silence.

"You might want to think about filling your canteens here. I don't remember if there was another stream or spring close by after this. Speaking of which." Aleutian stood up and glanced to the west with a musing expression, "there's, I think, a tree we can use to cross over the stream without getting our feet wet about a few miles or more from here. That's if I remember where we are."

"Have confidence in yourself, lad," Archy said plainly.

"I do, but," Aleutian glanced around at the two towering mountains around him and the thinly cut valley in front of him. The vegetation and trees engrossed a good portion of his vision but he could still see the next sharp curve through the branches and the next mountainous obstacle afterwards, "it's all grown up since then, and it's been awhile since I've been out here."

"Like you have," Locke smiled, seeing his moment come to pass.

Aleutian shifted to his father, offering a smile that Locke had been wanting to see and feel for long time. "Yea...I thought I was growing up on Mathias' boat, fighting Robotnick and all, but my true bearings in life did come from out here, dad."

"And where did they point to?" Locke asked, still holding his composure and warmth for his son.

The quick glance at his shoes was all the time Aleutian gave for thought. "Her," he said, and for Locke's growing affection and aspiration for his son's strengthening health, Aleutian said it with an uplifting smile.

Under which, Locke stepped up to his son and clasped him on both shoulders. Aleutian didn't cower this time to his tears, but looked on as Locke did as well. "I'm proud of you, Aleutian. Never mind what I had said years ago...I am proud of you. I may have been angry when you didn't come back, but what Athair said about you taking your duty to heart and trying to get Emi-La back to the tribe, I couldn't help but feel that you never really had ran away from who you are. You never went back on your teachings because of it; instead, you fulfilled them with her being your test." Locke touched his head on Aleutian's. "Don't ever think you couldn't have been a Guardian because you didn't complete your training and lessons. Don't ever once think it! You've always been and you always will."

Aleutian swallowed his tightened throat away, feeling something come to him through the closeness of his father's eyes. "And now?..."

"And now," Locke said. "And now, we move on." He glanced past, up behind Aleutian. "What's beyond that mountain?"

Aleutian turned away from his father's beared face and he too stared up the sloping wall. "More of the same. We are in the Badlands, and it's only going to get worse. I think a few valley's do open up a little ways from here, but we need to cross the water, and like I said, it's about a few miles down there," he pointed out, gesturing his head to the west once more.

Turning completely away, Aleutian began to rummage up his things, starting with his water-bladder, putting it back in its insulated pouch that rode up against his back when he placed it back on. He then grabbed his jacket, stared at it for a time and considered putting it on. The temperature wasn't scorching as before, thanks to being a few thousand feet above sea-level, but he still didn't want to fall over from a heat stroke.

Locke strode passed him as he lowered his jacket above his waist. "Getting water?" Aleutian asked evenly.

"Nope!"

And after shouting his mirthful comment, Locke took a step over the bank and set his foot on top of the flowing stream.

"It's deep, dad!"

With a shake of his head and a casting glare to the other side, Locke found a small path between a rock and a large trunk of an oak tree whereupon to hopefully traverse the mountain easily when he got across. "Don't worry about it." And he took another step on the stream.

Aleutian watched on in amazement, his eyes becoming wider as his father took five more additional steps, his boots lifting droplets of water from the surface tension on the treads, while the bottom of his tribal robe not once was splattered with a speck of water from the splash. The elder Guardian never sank to the bottom! Locke just strolled across the surface as if he were walking on solid, flat ground. And once he reached the other shore, he pivoted around to see his dumbfounded son staring on, his jacket firmly clasped in his hands until his bewildered mind caused him to drop it at his shoes.

"You coming?" Locke asked, his face was without expression, but inwardly, he was laughing it up.

Aleutian swivelled his head around in disbelief; not at what his father did, but at his request. He then looked to him, his brows showing his surprise. "What do 'ya mean,_ coming_? How am I supposed to do that?"

A deliberate, slow shake of the head followed under a disapproving glare as Locke set off, _again_, and began to cross the steam. The pace this time was a little faster and his stride more of a gaiting march. When he stepped onto the shore once again, he paused in front of his son. "The same way you saw through that tree yesterday–concentration and your will to do it."

Aleutian shot his left arm out towards the stream. "But this is different!"

"It's no different than your strength, or your ability to see past barriers."

"Oh," Aleutian said, his face twisting as if he had been tricked, and started to back away from Locke. "Now I see."

Locke pressured forward, never letting an inch get between him and his son. "Hey, you said you're ready. Don't let this little trial stop_you_. Think of it as the path to unlock yourself–"

"_That's easier said than done, Locke_," Archy poignantly said.

"_And why should it be_?"Locke countered under an accusing tone, still looking at Aleutian and not the fire ant on his shoulder.

To his surprise, he heard Archimedes' sigh over the telepathy. "_I watched him twist the neck off an Overlander and burn another one with said powers, Locke_."

The fight to keep his eyes keen with his son's was a winning battle, but the fear and terror that wrenched in his stomach never faltered, but only intensified. "_What_...?"

"Don't let the past keep you from your true self, Aleutian," Archy said thoughtfully. "You did it to save your life and you did it through your rage! That is all it was, and all it shall be."

Aleutian darted his eyes to the fire ant. "Precisely, all it was was my rage," came his embittered reply. "I was out of control, and you know it!"

"Remember, I helped. I gave my all to force my voice in your head just to warn you. And the rage I saw was what I came to expect to come from your family. Under _your_ circumstances, you performed what anyone in your blood soaked position and abilities would have done!"

"_That's enough, Archy_!" Locke shouted to the air, bringing his eyes this time over to his shoulder. "_Either stop, or leave, I don't care, but I'm wanting to put all this aside and keep the pain away from him_."

The Aussie hat turned along with his apologetic glare. But Aleutian saw the detrimental odds being waged, and he was very aware of the conversation that was going on without him having to listen to a freely spoken word. He still remembered the hammer voice of Archimedes thundering in his psyche. The warning was just, but the ant's telepathy nearly brought him further to his knees. He could still remember the burning pain of his cuts and gashes. He could still–

He shook his head to force his long nightmare back to the furthest reaches of his mind where he wanted it to stay forever until he died. The notion of "why now" came after he felt the twinge in his heart ceasing to beat it faster. His answer, as he looked further away from Locke and Archimedes, came to him almost in despair: he now totally respected what his father was doing for him. And why that notion all of sudden? After feeling passed his inner turmoil and his loathing of his father, that answer came as a whisper of reflection, and it too came as suddenly as the first. _"You did come back to get me!"_

Locke fired his looming eyes to his son as he heard his voice over his embittered indifference with Archimedes. "What?"

"You have made true on my offer, dad. You are here, and I am not at home. But yet, I did come home, and still, you came to get me." He stole a glance to the ground in his bewilderment. His gaze didn't last long, tracing his father's boots and robe back to his firmly loving eyes. "Is this irony? Is this a bad joke?"

"It's a lesson to all of us, son," Locke offered. "As you didn't come on your own to keep her promise, but with Knuckles helping you, it was Lara-Le who made me take your offer. Can you fathom the lesson now?"

Aleutian shook his head with somber eyes, his hands limp by his side.

"Things work out, Aleutian. No matter how dire our situation, and no matter how much we promise ourselves we won't bow down to defeat and hold on to our premonition that the other will prevail on our request...things work out if the cause is virtuous." Locke took the last step and again placed his warming hands over his son's shoulders. "Do you understand...do you believe in that outlook?"

He did. It had shown for so long now that what Locke had just said was the final clincher to bring everything in full circle to an honest affirmation of the here and now. As he cast his eyes toward their shoes in thought, he sighed brightly. "I've felt it, dad. The first rescue me and Emi-La did got a girl killed 'cause we weren't quick enough and we were to inexperienced. It hurt us...so much so, we were thinking of quitting altogether."

"What made you two stop that idea?" Locke asked gratefully.

"A panther."

"Oh?" Locke gauged quizzically. Oddly enough, the image he was looking for in his son's head of who he'd mention...only came as dull amber eyes in the dead of darkness. It was unnerving.

Aleutian snuffed and shrugged. "She told us, 'it will all be alright. This won't be the first or the last. It is sad that we can't save them all, but' as she put it, 'if we save one, that is one life that will flourish.'"

"You are a Guardian," Locke said softly. And after looking at his son for a long moment with affirming eyes, he walked back towards the water, and again, he stepped out from the bank and crossed atop the surface.

"This panther," Locke shouted as he reached the shoreline and spun around. "What was she to you?"

"Our handler...and she still is. But I don't think she'll mind if I put myself on the shelf."

"Really? Why's that?" Locke pondered, but he perhaps knew the answer already.

A slight smile. It was enough. "She's been wanting me to go home as it is."

Locke chuckled thoughtfully, but lowered his face in seriousness to show he was waiting.

Sighing for courage, Aleutian picked his things up at the bank, and stood at the edge. Looking down, he was captivated briefly at the waving aalge under the stream, and was entranced soon after with his own reflection. His smile...he hadn't seen it in so long.

"So how do I do this?" he asked after looking up to address his father.

Locke let a smug grin come across his lips and walked out to the stream, but stopped in the middle, still perched on the surface. "First, a clear mind."

"Well, that's a given."

Locke nodded with pinched lips. "Yes, but it's how you clear it, and_why_ you have to clear it that you need to understand."

A moment passed, and Aleutian felt empty for an explanation to give. So he shrugged his hands. "I'm listening."

"Are you? To what?" Jolting his head back, the younger Guardian glared at his dad at the meaning of his question. "Look inside you, Aleutian. What is it that you want?"

"To cross the water without getting drenched," Aleutian retorted smartly.

"Nice try," Locke said, dismissively. "Now what does your soul want? What does your inner drive tell you?" Aleutian's eyes seemed to brighten with revelation. "What do your feelings tell you?"

Clarity of his inner-self became a foreshadow all of a sudden. Aleutian at times thought he had looked deep inside his heart before, once to sell himself the idea to runaway, other times whether to go home or stay where he was to aid in a conquest. But what his father was asking him now dwelled on his mind, and conquered his understanding of the concept of soul-searching that he _did_ have. Once upon time, Lopper had asked something like this once before, but it was never this in depth. Never this close to touching one's own soul. Why Aleutian felt Knuckles was better than the two. Knuckles had grown up with only his soul as his guiding voice once Locke had left. Aleutian had friends to help...but many were long gone. None to help, and his fault to those that were, in that he didn't listen.

But was he hearing it now? If he was, it came as mere peep at best. _"Or am I still not listening? Where do I _really_ begin?"_

He let the riddle gleam across the tranquil void to his father, for he knew his thoughts had already floated to him.

"Feel for it, son. Let it become a distant thunder for a storm you want...not fear."

"But a storm in me isn't what I want. I've been fighting for it to go away," Aleutian said distressingly. "So what should I want?"

"Ahh," Locke smiled broadly. "That's the question you really needed to ask yourself. What should you want? To not get wet? For a shortcut? Or are your wants far more reaching than what is in front of you?"

Locke's tone was firm, but teaching. For a moment, Aleutian swore he was with Lopper again, but his father grandly polluted that image. And he didn't speak with informal paraphrases. Consequently, it was all making him think on his feet again, and more so into a thoughtful abyss. He never looked into different aspects such as this. Wants? What he had perceived before had now shown to be too trivial for the current undertaking. Did he have to feel for them? A thunder for a distant storm? To feel for it.

A spark...he lifted his eyes when the conclusion came raining in. He needed a spark. And he needed to remember just how it felt. Why? _"Because I want it!"_

"Then rekindle it if you can remember," Locke suggested confidently.

"But that was two years ago," Aleutian protested. "And even then it came to me out of the blue."

"And that was you coming of age, Aleutian. The time when your abilities were coming into their right, and you growing aware of them. Even if you couldn't think of it consciously, they were sparking in you because you _wanted_ something to happen deep inside you." Locke sighed deeply, and thoughtfully. "If you can touch it once more, if you find that desire...then you can walk on water. Then you can walk the world over."

Aleutian frowned with face that seemed to have awakened, and Locke had this notion he knew from what. "Then how can I touch it if I had before, dad?"

Locke smiled earnestly. "Think back to when you felt a passion. A strong passion that resembles love."

A pensive dour expression engulfed his son's face. One Locke was hurt by because he knew what he had just asked Aleutian to do was quite possibly revisit a past pain that they _all_ wanted to see let go and be forgotten. _"But don't revisit them. Think of better times...happier moments. Think of Emi-La, son."_

But the choice Aleutian found, and allowed himself to bare was not of his equal but of another friend. A male fox. Kyle! He could see his quipping smile and his happy-go-lucky attitude protruding with it. Yes...Aleutian unknowingly twinkled his own smile after finding the smell of diesel filter back into his mind. And Kyle talking away as the sound. It was with his bright voice that Aleutian saw himself watching an unspent torpedo being pulled out from the aft tube. Two other crewmen, he remembered, were yanking the thing out, but he let his focus go to the smoothed, orange fur coated fox, dressed in a light blue working shirt with grease and oil stains littered all over it, and dark, heavy pants lining his legs above his boots. Kyle had been his classmate for ages, but only took over from his own father a few years after Aleutian began patrolling on the Plunger. The fox joked around with Aleutian enough to cause Laraine, their one and only teacher, to throw fits. Aleutian swore if they hadn't had the control to stop, she would've collapsed from a heart attack. Being an adolescent–in Aleutian's case, pretending to be one–was a hell of a lot of fun, and at Kyle's expense at times.

It was Kyle who helped him assimilate into his new life among the Plunger's offspring. It was Kyle's dead corpse he awoke to after things went black over two years ago. But it was Kyle that became the spark to _want_ to save him.

The sharp snap of a weak link in the supporting chain rang in the enclosed hull and froze everyone cold just from pure instinct. However, gravity was still working in all this, and Kyle was crouched under the _fish_, checking for clearances and possible damages. In the instant it took one to blink, Aleutian was the only living thing moving, reaching out with his hands to do anything to stop a two ton torpedo from falling on Kyle. But to the amazement of the on looking crew, and to his absolute astonishment...the torpedo stopped suddenly, hanging in the air, weightless over Kyle's cowering ears. The world had ceased to move in all the calamity, just enough for Kyle to roll away from under it, and hardly enough time until Aleutian lost his bleak concentration of his passionate grasp to his inner power. His connection to the Master Emerald.

He could still hear the heavy _clang_ of the torpedo hitting the grated floor.

And feeling the tenseness of his muscles from the residual incorporeal sound, somewhere in this tightness, he felt a burning, gripping sensation, lashing at his nerves and charging heart. And he _wanted_ to hold on to it.

"Give-in to it, son," Locke breathed. "Don't just hold on to it; give-in. Embrace it."

"But how?" came Aleutian's timid voice.

Locke's eyes grew stern, but all the same, loving.

"Your resolve. It's what has burned so brightly inside of you, that it is your lost key to unlocking your very soul. Open the box...set it free for all time."

"But I'm afraid to."

"Don't be. Open it and come out here with me. It won't take control of you, for you have control of yourself. I'm here to show you how."

Setting foot at the edge, Aleutian let a out long breath and inhaled deeply. The impossible was before him.

But he choose not to see it.

His father was beyond that.

And he looked to him without any notion of obstacles.

He stepped out...and he felt his soul drown in his fortitude to see his wants achieved.

In his second step, his shoes were lapped by the water. With his third, his heart was beating brilliantly. And his forth step brought him closer to the object he know he has been wanting. For his last brought him to his father.

And he embraced him.

"I love you, dad!" he said proudly at Locke's chest. "It has been my _want_ to say that I love you."

Locke squeezed him harder and felt the warmth they had both been missing come through it. "As I do you. I always have, and I always will. You are my son and my _want_has always been to stand beside you. And things just seemed to work out."

As they stood, locked in the affection that only a father and son could understand. The emerald stream raced around their shoes and boots, the trickling sound magnifying what Archy saw as one closure coming to past, and yet, another door was still waiting to be shut. What he reflected at that instance was a young echidna still growing up from the few times he saw him, and a father still there, embracing the changes even when age had become matured.

"I've always had faith in you, son," Locke whispered, releasing Aleutian. "You will always have faith in us."

Aleutian gleamed back at his father. "Let's get across, pop. Let's see what else I still have."

* * *

Alas, it won't be until about a month or more before I can post of the next updates. But things are going to heat up. What comes next is my flashpoint. And one you all will see. 

Please review, tell me how I'm doing, and I shall seek what I can to reward you.


	30. Kindling a Flashpoint

* * *

Yea!!! Finally I'm back, and with a new chapter...and two more on the way. Can't say for certain when I'll get them posted, but it's all down to me now to get them corrected. Been very busy with different projects and working on the road. Partly writing out my first _lemon_ I here people call them, and getting that type of writing seasoned for a special purpose, however won't becoming in this book, or possibly a few more until later. From then on, it's just tongue and cheek mentioning--like I did with Lar-Na and Stenson's victory ritual--unless I find a sweet spot I may be able to place said, or hinted, subject matter in. Check out, "The Space Between," for a short, warming love story.

Sara...sorry for the long reply. No, I'm not looking for any of that...I just want to give you a few links to some other work that a fellow fan did. I really don't like advertising other peoples websites on here, soI've tied my own hands in effect. Now, if said fan reviews and posts the link in the review..hint...hint...you might find something_ interesting_.

Until then: we begin with a little comedy, and possibly understanding for some of us. Here, this chapter is beginning the damino effect that I have painfully built to start tumbling...which means we are on the final path to seeing this done. It's still lengthy, but I can honestly say I can count the chapters of how far I have yet to go...and I still have fingers left over. But I need to get cracking on them, and soon. I hate having people to wait on me.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic and the rest of his friends.

Enjoy, and thank-you for being my audience.

* * *

**Kindling a Flashpoint**

By: Mauser

* * *

The door swung open and out of the gathered Chaotix in front of the T.V. and game console, Julie-Su was the only pair of eyes to see Espio stomp in, his detrimental mood rigid in his stride. "What's up?" she asked, watching Vector and Mighty try to out do themselves from behind the couch. Knuckles was ever present on her mind.

"Nothing you can handle, Su! Just don't bother," Espio said, fixing his eyes towards the rear set of rooms and making his way to his.

"Are we standing-to?" Julie-Su asked next, doing her best to match the chameleon's range in voice.

A snort blew from his lips. "You're not; I am!"

Vector glanced back behind him. "Hey, then why the screwed up face! An't like you 'ta get all worked up about somtin you love!"

Espio stopped cold and reared around with a cringing fist. "You would too, Vec, if they stuck you with Shadow!"

"They're doing what!?" shrilled Julie-Su.

Rolling his eyes was the best Espio could do. "Yea! That skunk they call a commander wants me to go on a hike with Shadow about some message getting lost in the woods." –he brought his head around to Mighty along with a change of subject– "Hey, Mighty, are my stars and throwing knives still tucked away where they should be?"

"Bottom drawer, by the bed," the armadillo replied, never straying his attention from the Tetrus puzzle.

"What else?" Juilie-Su asked tartly, never skipping a beat.

"What else, _what_?" Espio replied.

"Knuckles for one! And what you're going to do once you find the message?"

Espee's head sulked to the floor, but his surly attitude was still riding high. "No word from Knux still. Geoffrey wants me to find the cipher for this code, and maybe we can break this thing a lot quicker." He then wandered his head to Julie-Su's burning eyes. "Knuckles is on his mind, too, Julie. I have this hunch that if he can break the encryption, we can find out what has happened–if anything at all–to Knuckles and we can hurry to the rescue."

"Then how come we're not going with you.? And why of all people, Shadow?"

Espio shrugged his shoulders broadly. "You got me!" And with that, he turned sharply on his heels and walked to his room. Once he entered, again flying the door open, he set to finding his weapons in the bedside dresser; grabbing his triple set of throwing knives in a webbed case that he wrapped around his left forearm just at the wrist, and slipping the same number of throwing stars between the case and his skin. Now he just had to stow away his bitter mood and everything would be set.

"_Yea, right!"_

Striding back into the living room of their temporary home in Knothole City, no thanks to the Dingoes and Eggman, Espio gave a side-glance once more to his friends, noticing Ray was among them and he too watching impatiently as Vector was getting his rear handed to him by Mighty. He finally felt Julie-Su's question hit him. He now wanted Angel Island's powerhouse with him on this run. Knuckles now presumed missing, a bad set of signal waves floating around, and going on a mission with a hedgehog who can change sides with a change of the wind; Espio for once didn't like the odds. And he thrived for bad odds and savored to face them alone.

After all, he's Ninja!

"Hey, where's Julie-Su?" he asked, finding a certain pink color wasn't in the mix of fur and skin when his situational awareness came to him.

"She's off to scream at Sally and St. John," Mighty answered, still diligently working the controls. "Sure hate to be them," –he broke his stare and looked to his losing opponent– "or Vector!"

"Yadda, yadda, yadda...you're gonna lose now, punk!"

Espio wavered his head slightly and held a deadpan face. "Vec, you're already getting owned."

"I 'an't down for the count yet, Espee," Vector sniped across his shoulder.

"Yea, but the clock is _ticking away_." Huffing a breath of hot air, he marched to the wooden door that led outside, turned the handle and stopped before swinging it open. "C'ya in a flash!"

"We'll be here!" Charmy answered under a heartfelt smile from the far end of the couch. It was his way, and the rest of the Chaotix way as well, of saying, "get back here in one piece."

And when Espio left through the door and closed it, an uneasy silence broke out under the electronic _whoops_ of the game from the living room. A moment or two passed with the unspoken message being tossed around by doleful gazes, the four Angel Islanders wanting in the fight to kill bots and not time, before Ray broke the air of tension.

"Hey, is it my turn yet?"

* * *

It wasn't Shadow's idea of transportation, but with another scour around King Frederick's Airbase, his eyes told him there wasn't anything else the Freedom Fighters were going to let him use. The ring shape of what the Overlander's had used time and time again as their own mode of travel, and then battlement against the Mobians during the Great War, the Boogie still had it's unabashed qualities: small enough to pass by an untrained eye though the sky, fast enough to scoot almost anywhere over Mobius Prime in a few hours or less, and had its space to stow enough gear for a short mission–such as the one he was tapped to do. But in all honesty, like the chameleon he was teamed with, Shadow would love nothing more than to scurry to the Badlands under his own legs and enhanced shoes.

With that a given, he reached down to the huddled series of satchel charges, four in all and all _cheekily_ issued by St. John himself, Shadow, without a care to safety of the explosive contents, chucked the olive green sacks one by one inside the large disk of aluminum. The coming late afternoon sunlight from the open canopy, cutout for the launch ramp which led to the heavens, came in like an overtone of saffron vegetation in its own right, covering the outer rim of leaves which now resembled a power-ring, and engrossed the runway and a good portion of the open tie-down slots which only had a few gathered planes. From what Shadow reflected of what St. John had said about them, and what Eggman had learned, was Knothole didn't have the pilots the monarch wanted and needed to fly the machines. And from the looks of their scion linage, the abundance of stagger-wings, and the few lot of mono-wings that flanked the others at the rear, those _good_ trained pilots wouldn't stand a fleeting chance against Eggman's A.I. piloted bots. The glimmering boogie had a much stronger wager to survive than what the House of Acorn had to pass for combative aviation.

It made him even question if the chance they were offering him was a calculation in their favor if he'd stay on, or if he, like that of recent, go his own way. For once the notion to "cheat" someone or something out of anything resembling value to Shadow, actually felt bawd in the sense that what Sonic and Nicole had done for _him_ to unlock Gerald's Diary, and to know now what they were asking, didn't come with a certain "just" he could rank as repayment. He felt he was cheating them on the idea that he was being let loose for his own vengeance and his own prize.

And these feelings weren't generally his style.

Snorting the preoccupation of philosophy aside from his mind, the black hedgehog lumbered his vision once more around him in the hope Espio would appear. That was something, or actually someone, he wasn't looking forward to teaming up with–and he knew the chameleon felt likewise–but like the boogie, Espio possibly had redeeming qualities that could either be helpful...or a pain in the tail. Nevertheless, the stockily built, purple lizard he was looking for wasn't to be found.

However, staring at him with a shaking, snobby smile, and standing ten meters away from him close to the control tower, Rogue's wrapped, almost skin tight suited figure exhibited a jagged but refined pose with her hands planted on her hips, looking in his direction that had an entangled expression of "what's up," and, "why the dumb attitude?" Shadow turned his head away in dismissal with which his body followed suit, and he glowered at the open canopy again. Loneliness was his sanctuary, his reprieve from the world and; becoming one with it. It was the way of the Ultimate Life Form.

"Just put the cold shoulder on me without saying 'hi,' eh?" came the coy, mocking voice from behind him.

Rogue had this swagger that announced the woman in her. Her hips would titter like a boat in a moderate surf, whilst the rest of her perfect form remained without the slightest movement. Perhaps it had to do with her boots, pushing her heels high although they weren't like the columns a pair of staletto shoes had. Shadow could see this without looking. Her chattering footsteps were enough to make him squint his eyes shut, wishing she'd just disappear.

"Go away!" he remarked under a dead monotone.

"Wow, some pick-up line," she said pungently, stopping short of his back.

A reply evaded him, so he instead crossed his arms. If she was looking for conversation, she wasn't going to get it from him, and that suited him just fine. After all, she too had her motives, and Shadow was all the wiser not to play along with her tricks. Self-experience went a long way.

But in the back of Rogues' mind–well the front of it now–Shadow's broody attitude was nothing more than a target to help ease the boredom of the day. Pulling Julie-Su's tail wasn't all that fun without Knuckles around. And while on the thought, Aleutian's absences was becoming hard to bear on the notion that she wanted to pick his brain and dive deep into him if he'd open up. _"If!"_

"Oh, com'on. You can't leave a girl 'hangin?"

"Just watch me," Shadow snorted, still keeping his head straight.

He was now going to wish he never made that comment. For all Rogue saw in him now was a body and brain to have free reign with for her amusement.

"Oh, I can watch...I can watch _all_ day." The white bat stepped up closer behind him, putting her eyes to work, though he couldn't see them. "Nothing impresses me more than to see how _tough_ someone is–"

"_That's a lie!"_ Shadow snuffed in the back of his head.

"–and you are doing a _cool_ job at it. So, tell me, _spiny,_" –Shadow lost his vacant stare and popped his head to the side with an expression of surprise and offense–"does a girl always have to work this hard to get your attention?"

He seemed to shudder as he threw his head back around. "Just _go away_!" he pronounced slowly this time. Quite agitated.

Rogue stepped around him, her eyes canted with her head, purposely brushing her right ear gingerly across his arm and snaking in front of him. Her smile was the punch of her whole carefully, dogged maneuver. "_Aw_, you can't get away from me _that_ easy."

"How fast can you run?"

* * *

Espio stepped lightly through the maze of trees that made up the majority of Knothole as he ventured toward the Airbase. In actuality, he wasn't looking to sneak up on Shadow. Far from it! The purple chameleon was building himself up to his silent workings. His ghostly persona. Gone were his ghastly thoughts of the black hedgehog, and thus, so were his ideas of what St. John can do to himself without Hershey's help. No, like Knuckles, he was peering into his warrior persona and searching for the right ingredients that would be right for this upcoming mission.

He already felt the tingling flange of his skin and blood mixing, leaving nothing more than his cool head to shift his appearance to the backdrop's contour and color; disappearing from sight.

When he rounded a large walnut tree that stood as a sentry to the beginnings of the airbase, Espio willed his ears to hear more of himself than the chirping birds and rustling leaves around him. Crossing from forest to the clearing boundary, he felt he was still making too much noise to achieve the silence he was wanting. Four hundred meters further with a turn to the west from the control tower, Espio held true to his steady pace, but finding his reward coming like the mere wind he felt waft over him. If caution was needed from here on out, all he had to do was walk slowly. Stalking more like it. And no one or nothing would hear him coming to take their life...

That's unless something so humourous as what his eyes beheld past his horn happened to pop into sight with Rogue egging on Shadow for a simple pleasure. Espio's last footfall was an audible stamp, breaking his silence with only himself to hear, and a snickering smile forming on his lips, producing a muffled snort in the same instant. Standing his ground and holding his laughter in tight, he almost succumbed to his lungs wanting to expel their air-sacks and fall to the tarmac.

"_If only Julie-Su was here to see this!"_

Lifting his head and diminishing his smile, he drew a long breath and continued on. "All set?" he asked gruffly. Shadow spun his head around almost instinctively and Espio saw he was rather happy to see him. _"Wonder why?"_ thought Espio laughingly.

"Anytime!" replied the hedgehog with crossed arms.

Rogue however seemed to ignore his barriers. "Oh, don't get your quills in a knot," she said, raising a right brow more out of taunting than fluster.

Espio was right in line with a titter. "That's the best pun I've heard all day."

"Go ahead," Shadow groaned, "just keep her at, _eh_!"

"Get a grip, man–she's just pulling your chains. You don't have to listen."

"It's kind a hard when she's _right THERE_!" grunted Shadow.

Letting Shadow have the win, even though Espio got what he wanted out of it, he let his eyes fall inside the boogie just as Rogue was about to say something else. He had to will himself not to blanch when he saw the satchel charges piled inside carelessly. "Go ahead; blow yourself up!"

"Give me a break!" Shadow spat back, removing his arms and throwing a challenging face to Espio.

The chameleon matched it. "Heck no! With me out here and my butt on the line, you're going to do what I say!"

Espio was about to find out about his mistake.

"In your dreams! It's my little way of saying thanks for their help and no way I'm gonna have some tag-along to give me orders."

"And I'd like to come home in one piece!"

"Then stay the heck out of my way, lizard breath! Or you might just come home with the mentality of a two year-old, as if you don't have one yet!"

Rogue had been an afterthought between the two, but no longer as she wedged herself between them, her shoulders becoming the wall that separated them. When she felt their eyes resting on her trim figure, she swivelled her head to their boiling faces. "Can we have a little understanding, here?"

"NO!" they both said in unison, then snapped their faces back toward other.

"Fine then...I'm going with so you two don't blow yourselves up before you get there!"

Chameleon and hedgehog alike screamed with their eyes and not their mouths, though they were posed to do so. The ten seconds of silence that followed was enough to make the white furred bat smile as she viewed this quick moment in hesitation from the two out of the corner of her eyes. She kept her head straight at the boogie, then decided to put action to her spontaneous words. She had too. She couldn't believe that she, herself, had said what she had said! It was only when she climbed in over the side that she knew she was committed. Why on Mobius did she even have to say such a thing. _"Oh, come on girl, it will be fun." _

Her spark of optimism slid across her face as a set smile. Her anchor showing that she was not moving an inch was exhibited by her arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"Well, we set or what, _boys_?"

* * *

Julie-Su's hunting expidition for a certain princess took her from Freedom HQ, to the castle with only Elias saying he didn't know where his sister was, and then finally after a lead from Rotor after passing him on her walkabout, she found the auburn haired ground squirrel in, of all places, Uncle Chuck's Dinner. The opening of the door sent the fragrance of chilli-dogs, french fries, and a few other enticing foods up her nostrils. Her stomach just had to knock at her appetite, but her heartstrings pulled her back and refocused her to her main mission in life.

"What are you doing eating and not going out to find Knuckles?" she hissed, slamming her hands down on the booth table that surprised both Sally, and Bunnie almost at mid bite of a burger. The pink echidna took note of the instant damage and reigned in the overbearing soldier inside of her while and mustering a gentler expression. She was still on fire, however, but she chose her words a lot differently. "Why haven't you called up the Chaotix instead of sending Espio out on something totally different from finding Knux?"

Sally laid her meal down on her tray, glanced at Bunnie, who had her head and ears low in understanding and sympathy with Julie-Su. Then the Princess of Acron shifted further inside the booth and let her eyes become her hands to motion the troubled echidna inside. "Come sit, Su."

And that she did, plopping down and taking great care she didn't do so on her tail. "I'm sorry Sally, I didn't mean to get fired up at you."

"'Shug," offered Bunnie, "Ah'm feeling the same tension as you, dear, and I want to do nothing more than to get my 'Toine' back in my arms."

"But it could be a mass trap for all of us, Julie," Sally added, talking above the bustling diner's patrons. "Espio and Shadow are St. John's idea, and quite honestly, he has a good operation planned that should help us in finding_ our_ boys." She pressed her smiling, comforting face close to Julie-Su. "And we need you and the Choatix close by in case Eggman has something up his sleeve that could very well devastate us here. He knows where this place is, and we can't risk this city and all its citizens to be left wide-open just because we're chasing a trap of our own. I hate it as much as you do, Su." Leaning forward, she placed a gentle hand on the echidna's shoulder. "Just have faith in him. You always have. He's come through for us since the first war...he can do it again, and again!"

And with her own words licking at her ears, she felt a pinch in her heart when Sonic's brandishing smile filled her mind. Between the three girls at the table she was the one holding her feelings back the most. She knew her job and knew it very well: keep the living, living and counting on Sonic to return. Her heart pounded for him to keep true to that goal. Her yearning for him wasn't as strong as the years before when they were in love, but his absence due to unforeseeable things, as always in war, was becoming the exercise for her love to grow for him. She, however, was trying to hide it; to deny it. Saying he would still be the same as before.

She had to let it go, fearing her emotions would spring to her cheek muscles and betray her.

"I'm done," she confessed, pushing her tray away before realizing Chuck's diner required her to dispose with what she couldn't finish. "Lets take in the sun for a walk, you all in?" she asked, looking to Bunnie then to Julie-Su for approval.

"Lets go," the half cyborg rabbit said graciously. Julie only nodded and stepped out of the booth.

The short delay before feeling the hot rays hot glide across her fur couldn't have come sooner. Julie took charge once out the door, but stopped and turned to Sally. "Is there a way we can't make this happen again?"

Sally smiled, more to the fact that Julie had reaffirmed her faith that Knuckles will succeed and will come back to her. She let her voice show her gratitude; it was just deserved. "We have to take that up with General Amadeus. Elias has him going full throttle with his ideas and I can honestly say I do agree with him that we can't spread ourselves thin. 'Carelessness,' as he put it, 'aren't sound battle plans.' And this is coming from a fox who lost his eye in a battle." And the first one Julian Kintobor lead when her father put his trust in the Overlander. A notion came to her on the tail of that thought: what did Amadeus feel after losing his eye, then being betrayed by the same man? _"Sliced by a double edged sword."_

"Where are they anyways. Tails and his father, 'Ah mean," Bunnie inquired.

"Looking for something for Elias," Sally replied, then shifted her commanding eyes to Julie-Su. "And it involves your sweatheart's brother."

"Aleutian?" Julie-Su pressed but really didn't need to. "Why?"

"Elias wants to find out where he got those scars. Aleutian showed him where to go, but that was with his father twisting his arm due to it involving other Mobains." Sighing Sally raised a brow with a hint of a chuckle. "If you ask me, if those scars have been earned the hard way, I won't be surprised if Elias knights him."

"Not just being a friend?" Bunnie said questionably.

"I doubt it with him. He has my dad to impress and he is trying–in my eyes–way to hard."

Looking at the ground, Julie-Su raised her head up after considering her words, and hopefully divulging her thoughts to curb Sally's. "And what Dr. Quack pulled out of his back isn't enough? He was _crying_ Sally, and I know that family has to have a gosh-darn reason to cry. I've seen my Knuckles take hits that would leave _me_ in tears, but he just got up and went back on fighting."

A long thought, and Sally finally answered with a shallow nod. "It depends on what Tails and General Prower have to report when they get back. Until then, I still have my suspicions." Shaking her head inwardly, she glanced to Julie-Su then to Bunnie. " Look, if you need your minds off of this, why don't you two head back down to the Airbase, or get yourselves loosened up somehow so when we get some confirming intelligence we can go and get our people back–that includes Amadeus and Tails if this is bigger than what we have seen. Can you two cope with that?"

Bunnie pipped up generously. "Sally-girl, 'Ah'm fine just hanging out with you."

"I think I'll take your offer, again" the former Legionnaire said frowning. "What do you need to be done besides double checking the ships?"

Again, Sally smiled. "The same, plus check the onboard weapons, make certain they can function when we need them to. I'll send Rotor out. He knows what is needed and where it goes, and he has a good ear that listens."

"Works."

"Start with the Mark II and then one of the larger transports. Make us ready for anything."

A smug nod. "You got it, Princess."

"Terrific–"

A hum that was growing loader in volume diverted the three girls' attention to the western sky. In the opening that Chuck thought was, and is, a good spot to set-up shop in Knothole City, their eyes chased the half-moon saucer rising and shooting towards the west, disappearing quickly as a fading dot in the lush clouds. Even when the sound had disappeared they still looked on, their imaginations taking them on the ride.

"Come back soon Espio," Julie-Su summoned from her heart.

With a lasting smile, and commendable expression, Sally laid her hand on Julie's shoulder. "That's what we need. That's what brings them back."

* * *

"Back off the screws to six hundred revolutions."

Amidst the cling and chatter of the telegraphs being operated to the engine room, with a lone red light that seemed to turn the bridge into a single candle lit room, and the wooded, creaking sound of the helmsman putting effort to keep the _Hawking_ steady, Stenson's voice, stance and tall posture were a far cry from what the crew felt. Tension. And Trent knew well it was the Legion that presided over them, not a boisterous, or blustering individual who was looking for fame and glory with victory. Only mission, purpose and principle.

And considering how close they were, it was a wonder that his voice hadn't flinched above a commanding whisper. That had to be it though. The agitation wasn't there in his pose but his face had it plastered into a perfect frown. They were closer than he wanted them to be. His original blessing of the fog to give them cover was now a vast detriment to their sensors and range finders. Satellite wise, their position was dead on. It was just too close for comfort for their weapons to have any effect.

And thinking of which: "Fire Control?" the Captain, but still Field Marshal, inquired, still reposed.

Trent reached behind to the back wall for the radio, snatched it and pressed the talk button on the microphone. "Ell-Tee, status?"

"Range-finders are barley bouncing back. We could wing it and walk the shots up, but it's up to you."

Stenson mused for more than a moment. Ell-Tee's suggestion was an idea, however not sound for accuracy. Walking to the map panel at the right side of the bridge and close to the helm, he took a quick figure of the distance and made a fast judgement call. "Steer left to bearing zero-one-five."

And that was all that could be done. Last thing he needed was the ship to get picked up and not the enemy. His previous corse was meant to drive further in so as to at least descry a radar signature. But the rain had lifted and in came the fog, creating ghost echoes that could have him chasing such phantoms to the ends of Mobius.

The radio crackled abruptly when Ell-Tee's voice came shouting in the bridge. "Lights, starboard side!"

Never thinking to move, Stenson was well on his way to the right side overhang from the bridge with his pair of binoculars up and set for the green color of night vision. The fog, again, was no help, creating a large screen of static as the device desperately fought to pick up any notion of light. Stenson's scan was a broad sweep from left to right. There was no way his binoculars could miss even the smallest candle burning brightly in the night. Even in this fog.

And he was correct, his triumph coming as a blood thirsty smile.

"Petty Officer, slow us to three knots and hold her steady." Racing back inside, he again looked at the nineteen inch screen of the G.P.S. and did a more accurate measurement to the coast, making sure to add heading and their current position to the mix of mathematics roving in his head.

"Engine room reports desired speed, Captain."

"Very well, Petty Officer. Get Ell-Tee back on the line."

Trent did his duty and a short second passed until Ell-Tee's calm voice emerged from the speaker. "Our readings are sporadic, sir."

Stenson smiled. Ell-Tee was way ahead of the curve. "Set-up for three kilometers." _"At least we know where to shoot at,"_ Stenson didn't add verbally.

As soon as the order was repeated through the mike, via Trent, Stenson peered out from the bridge and took up a observation post back on the overhang. He watched as the barrels of the proton cannons traversed and pointed over the side of the ship. It was almost a textbook broadside if Stenson could find that particular textbook. However, the challenge was going to be the range. And given that they were still blind–and he knew this way ahead of his decision to go North–their shots were going to be walked up and in the same instance, pray that they would hit something of logistical value.

"Fire control reports weapons are ready."

Hearing Trent's report commanded his head to linger back into the bridge. "Tell Ell-Tee to fire four shots, two from each gun and wait for impacts." But did he honestly need to give that order? He was well aware of Ell-Tee's knowledge of throwing plasma out onto the enemy. For years Ell-Tee trained some of the most formidable Legionnaires to shoot and shoot well enough to give the Dingos a rough start to the war. For that matter, the Echidna Security Team before the war; during _their_ war. And so being, for Stenson, his order was far from the mark of knowledge but mostly just him feeling skiddish. He now wished he'd listened to Lar-Na's fears, feeling his own starting to worm it's way into his stomach.

"_But I'm not going back on my word to Rob-O."_

Letting his hands fall to his chest, still gripping the binoculars, he let the roving, thick air wrap his senses, wanting to ease his mind just for a brief stay in tranquility and then quite possibly return to the here-and-now with a more defined head of courage. _"Fear,"_ he mused quietly, even in his mind, _" is what makes decisions less rash and galvanized. Turning tides of war for the smell of victory when the commander needs to breathe in the stench of what he really feels. What makes him whole and like the rest. Fear."_

Sounds of the churning sea was like music. The sway of the boat like a timid dancer, only nodding to the slow rhythm as the _Hawking_ slid through the water on it's slow course. The gentle rock in the silent night, save for the sound of the engine room, instilling a marching beat in Stenson's psyche as he stared long and hard at the sticky fog. His lips began to move as if in a whisper, no sound following. Even the air he was exhaling was droned out by the passing sea.

"_We fight for might...we kill for right...and victory as our destiny. We praise Dimitri...we pass with dignity...and the Guardians shall know our mercy. Of that we lack...we take back our land...and our passed restored with all to flourish."_

The last pounding of the marching drum in his head landed with the beat of his heart and sparked his voice to growl deeply.

"Commence firing!"

Three seconds passed before the order was put in to effect. The right side of Stenson's face lite up when Ell-Tee's cannon at the stern was touched off, lacing the Field Marshal's facial textures in a brilliancy of crimson red. The thunder that was trailed by the proton charge from the capacitors and diods was ear-splitting. The heat felt as if it would sunburn the exposed skin on his muzzle. And Stenson loved it, smiling as his emerald eyes followed the lone bolt into the hazy black of the night, disappearing as the first kilometer and a half was cleared with ease. All this was repeated in rapid succession once the bow cannon announced its bark of energy through the calm night, showing the rest of Stenson's face this time on the left. Belches of fire leaped from both cannons when they're next volley jumped eastward. And again, Stenson watched the bolts diminish in color and contrast over the gritty, black ink void. Thus, he turned his binoculars up to his eyes, lowered the brightness, and continued to watch the glimmering pure white orbs flash over the green display. He watched them fall, gravity pulling down the abundance of charged ions, neutrons and protons that actually had weight in their tight collectiveness. What most Mobians didn't know about plasma and proton bolts–unless they followed the ever changing evolution in weaponry or engineered them from the get-go–is that their power, drive, and energetic forces were nothing more than an exercise in particle fission that heats its target on impact as the force and chain-reaction of the atoms coming apart, and in effect, using kinetic energy to shatter and rip apart the enemy's toys.

Those reactions with the desired subsequent explosions never came. Of the small flicker of light that was Stenson's target beacon, the glowing orbs from the first salvo of shots burned out, his conclusion coming fast of the miss and knowing of the steam they just produced. Grumbling under bared teeth, a snap of his head brought his attention to the inside of the bridge, letting his hands keep his binoculars insatiable in position in the air:

"Increase range up to two-hundred meters and fire a three round volley with a hundred and fifty meter 'walk-up!'"

"Aye, sir!" Trent curtly shouted before repeating the order to Ell-Tee and the bow gun crew. Time was now of the essence. Depending on how close the first series of rounds fell, they were either still safe in the cloak of the fog, or the _Hawking_ was about to receive a warm reception as a result of Stenson's crude calculations. All this was in Trent's mind as he speed through the orders.

Again, the seconds felt as if they were crawling by. The hydriodic pumps were deafening to Stenson's ears, the corner of his eyes descrying the slight raise of the barrels as the fluid pushed them further skyward. The backwash of ozone from the first volley slithered into his nose and bit at his tongue. And yet, he still kept his head and binoculars trained on the lone flicker of light.

When the cannons touched off, his pupils burned when the night vision settings were overcome with whiteout. He forced his head back on reaction, squinting hard to force his eyes to take hold of his own darkness, and let the flashes in his eyes dissipate. Willing his eyelids to open, just at the moment the bow cannon unleashed its bolt of crimson energy through the night sky, putting Stenson's hard labor to keep his vision to waste once more.

The shot from Ell-Tee's gun rang out in succession from the bow's answer, after the slight up-angle tilt for further range. It was on this burst that Stenson was engrossed in marvel and not the sudden surprise of being blinded. It was on the bow's additional firing when Stenson felt his heart beat stronger with confidence; the smell of ozone mixed with ocean feeding him the pride, along with the sense of the coming sting of reprisal in their offering, hitting Robotnick where he would feel it this time. And when the rapid succession of the last set of sighting shots were freed with their barrels, launching them backwards upon their energetic departure, Stenson slowly rose the binoculars back to his eyes and followed the six dazzling orbs that sped through the foggy void and began their slight descent towards the–

It was as if the sun was making a very early calling and at a brisk pace. Without letting a moment escape through his fingers, Stenson brought his binoculars down and let the nakedness of his eyes behold the sight of the first direct hit. Through the fog, and even across the stretched distance, he could see the faint anatomy of a fiery plum light up the dark sky. The sea glimmered as the passing burst of light licked at the ripples, and aiding the fog to briefly showing it's haze. But just as said light was becoming extinguished, a second explosion of yellow followed, flanking the first, from what Stenson could measure from their floating position, by mere centimeters to the left. This one burned brighter and held its form longer, lasting well into its fanfare when the second set of bolts landed amidst the ensuing chaos Stenson was bringing to Eggman's back porch.

Between the ringing in his ears from the previous hammering of cannon fire, and the splash of the sea from the _Hawking_ cutting into it, the distant thunder finally pitched across the water, starting as a sudden ascent in pitch before the rapid decrescendo to silence. At which time from the first direct hit fairly announcing itself curtly, the second barked at Stenson, louder in pitch, deeper in tone, as if it were a chanting voice. For it was.

And for the crew, it was the rallying cry to trigger their's, letting their whoops and hollers pour over the deck of the ship.

The horizon was soon pelted with two more series of afar explosions. With these flickers in Stenson's pupils, he shifted back inside the bridge, took note of the GPS screen with a glance, and let his eyes fall on the peacoat of Petty Officer Trent:

"Fire at will; pass it on quickly!"

Trent nodded, though it wasn't received as Stenson glided away and back outside once more. Grabbing the mike from the wall-mounted radio, Trent spoke evenly through it. "Fire at will, repeat, all guns fire at will!"

The ship was rocked again by its own devices. Both guns were locked in a match of sheer performance, the crew seemingly in competition with each other, seeing which side was the fastest at dishing out the shots, while showing which cannon was the better of the two. Every clap from Ell-Tee's cannon was followed up almost as soon as the racing red bolt left the barrel with the bow's answer. If this was a race that Stenson was seeing, then Ell-Tee was firmly in the lead. From the quarter minute of his "fire-at-will" order, the long dread-locked Legionnaire's crew had successfully launched and landed four shots into the belly of the fat-man's water hole. Of what type of objects of Eggman's affection Stenson was laying waste, the Field Marshal didn't know, however the growing brightness of the horizon was the body of evidence that mass destruction was being played out.

What started as sprinkles of explosions were now nothing more than a climatic firework show gone horridly wrong for the spectators. It was a homey, but yet cruel feeling, that Stenson was glad he wasn't one of them.

A sudden harsh flash engrossed the night sky as a bellowing chaos of orange and yellow erupted in front of them. When its clapping echo thundered across the sea, it nearly took Stenson off his feet just by the sheer volume of the crescendo. A vivid, gaping grin bathed his face as the elements of his labors were becoming the sweet taste of triumph of which he was longing to indulge. The aroma of ozone magnified his yearning satisfaction, like wine without the heartburn afterwards, but leaving the same taste in his mouth as when it was initially drunk. This was the taste of battle.

The taste of victory.

The fiery plum from afar died; with it, his lust. A new longing took its place–Lar-Na. She wasn't by his side this time, unlike previous engagements where she watched as if she were a concert goer spoiled in a press-box. As his rank took him away from battles at the front and into bunkers to wield them over a holo-table, she became an object to smile upon when things went either good or bad. But now she was ill, and he afraid the sweat smell of shooting guns would become poison to her fragile lungs. He knew it had to be distressing for her to hear the wonton chaos topside, secluded in their cabin for her own health, but it was that notion he was trying to preserve.

Shifting his boots for better comfort, he sighed as he looked on, still entranced with the showering crimson bolts that flew like mutated lightning-bugs into the growing saffron light towards the shore. He realize his trace drowned out the ear-splitting sounds. Glancing to the water below, he descried the choppy ripples from every flash both guns would light emit from, the concussion from the discharged plasma bolt creating this effect. It was an awesome show of firepower.

But alas, a voice in his head began to trickle to the command being inside him. It was a whisper, a mere hint that his show needed to have the curtains drawn. A voice saying that the play needed to end before it bored the audience. He hated such whispers, but they needed to be heard in such troubling times such as this. One more second of continuation could bring hell their way in reprisal. With this timing coming to a close, he listened and obeyed by turning around to the bridge.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" –his order was repeated by Trent while he was still shouting orders– "All engines ahead full! Left-full rudder and steer to bearing one-nine-one!"

The bridge was in full fury. Stenson watched the organized zestful ballet from the corner of his eye, seeing Ell-Tee's cannon slam back from the recoil of its last shot, then slide forward soon afterwards to a smoking rest. Under the ringing in his ears he could still distinguish the telegraphs being manipulated by a red echidna in much the same attire as Petty Officer Trent, and the slapping of fingers meeting wood from the Helmsmen. The change in direction and momentum drifted up his legs to his nervous system. In reaction, his right hand met the railing for support, his face still blank in thought, his eyes watching his art of destruction pass around as the_Hawking_ made its turn.

"Order weapons to stand-down after half an hour!"

Ell-Tee's voice was a startling surprise to his left. And so was his presence. "Will do, Captain," he affirmed with an assuring nod.

Stenson's relieved smile had the effect of lifting the fog. "Well done, Ell-Tee. If only the enemies on Angel Island could bear our crushing resolve."

"In due time, _Field Marshal_. I remember some echidna told me to have patience when such wishes are expressed."

Stenson nodded graciously once again, knowing that said echidna was standing in his boots. "What happens if you're promoted, Ell-Tee? Will you still keep your name–"

"Don't go there, sir. It's not who I am, and I _will_ turn it down faster than a heartbeat and a plasma bolt."

"It's just deserves," Stenson protested earnestly.

"Then keep me how I am, sir," countered the long dread-locked Legionnaire, his bearing acting as a wall for Stenson to crumble. The mortar was strong in his voice.

"May I ask why, Ell-Tee, before I cast my decision?"

Allowing a glance to the passing water, the _Hawking_still laboring in its turn to the south, Ell-Tee sighed solemnly before returning his certitude look to Stenson. "Sir, I belong where I am. To me, sir, a promotion would be a detriment to our fight, and the absence of my experience in the line of duty and battle would, in my mind, cause more deaths on our side than theirs. And if you ask me, I'd rather see more deaths on their end. So keep me where I am. I'd feel like a loner and a let down, sir, if I'd be promoted."

A firm, musing smile came across his lips. "You'd be the oldest Lieutenant in the Legion," Stenson quipped unabashed.

"Then so be my legacy," Ell-Tee resounded with exaggerated pride. But Stenson could see it was taken to heart.

And yet, something else took to his own. "Speaking of which: I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier the way I did. It wasn't my intention to be shrewd to you–"

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

"You've always have with me Ell-Tee," Stenson offered with a welcoming smile.

Swallowing for a rational voice, Ell-Tee looked to his Field Marshal, after the many years he'd known him, with the eyes of an understanding, sympathetic friend. Eyes of a long time comrade who could share the tears of the horrors of war, and be mindful of the principle exhuming from them. For the mood in his eyes reflected the history between the two that rang truer than the feeling itself. "Stenson, sir, I've never understood the birds and the damn bees, but I can honestly say sir, as a comrade, that you had a right, I guess, to be that way with me."

"No one had to, Ell-Tee."

"Did you feel better, sir?" the Legionnaire asked firmly.

"No, I didn't, Ell-Tee."

"Did you feel in your heart to tell me the problem afterwards?"

"Yes, in a bad way, I did."

"There you go. I can't explain it, Field Marshal, but some things have to be lead by a strong hand for an easier way to break the cycle in the long run. If it made you feel better, renewed you fighting spirt so as to keep Lar-Na with us and with you...then you had the right to snap at me. If it was for anything less, I would have taken your apology and your stinking promotion just out of spite."

A shout from Trent never broke the two Legionaires' stare from each other. "Course at one-nine-one, Captain."

"Very well," Stenson choused as a side glance. He still had his gracious eyes attuned to Ell-Tee.

And at last, Ell-Tee broke his bearing into a smile. "My I suggest you batten down the hatches with Lar-Na, sir, and let me and Corporal Vickers stand the rest of the night as watch."

"You'd do that?"

"Absolutely, Field Marshal. Be with her while she still presides in this world with us. Aurora and Dimitri knows she deserves it. Shoot, for that matter–"

Stenson cut off Ell-Tee with a firm grasp at his semi-replaced shoulder. "Loud and clear, Lieutenant." Leaning to Ell-Tee's ear as he began to make his journey below, he let a warming whisper stray from his lips. "Ell-Tee..._Henderson_...you are a true friend...if only our ranks and customs would permit us to enjoy our company."

A shallow nod with crisp eyes shouted louder than Ell-Tee's voice. "Like wise, sir. Like wise."

Squeezing Ell-Tee's shoulder, Stenson released his grip and took a long stride inside the bridge. Giving a curt bow of his head to Petty Officer Trent was enough of an order that said Ell-Tee was in command and he was turning in.

"Night, Captain."

"Night, Petty Officer. Hopefully we'll reach the Island by morning and we can be done with this name calling."

Trent said to nothing, only twitching his head.

Exiting, Stenson felt the swamp of tiredness hit his head. However he may have felt, Vickers was on his way up the steps to the bridge. Stenson stopped, allowing the Corporal to pass on a rare occasion, and nodded.

"Night, Corporal."

"Turning in early, sir?"

"Ell-Tee's orders."

A light chuckle. "Ell-Tee giving _you_ orders, sir?"

"Sometimes the king of the food chain needs to have advice shoved his way."

"I hear that, sir."

Stenson, however, eyed him earnestly. "Don't take it to heart, _Corporal_."

"I hear that, too, sir." Vickers suddenly had this stroke of genius flash before his eyes that held Stenson's attention to him awhile longer. "Sir, how do you plan on explaining the Sergeant's absence to Kommisar? You know..._Wesson?_"

Twisting his lips in musing, Stenson held a short pause in the sticky air before he relinquished part of his conjured speech that he aimed to give Lien-Da upon their return:

"Killed in action while trying to secure a perimeter for the refugees." His eyes grew sharp in sternness. "Can you concur that, Corporal?"

"Died a hero's death, Field Marshal!" Vicker's responded with a mirthful grin.

"You're a good soldier," Stenson complimented eagerly, then stepped beside Vickers and went down the stairs.

The Corporal watched him descend, the glow of the port raging in fire being the light of which he saw him. He watched him land on the main deck. Watched him reach the bulkhead passageway to the inside. Saw him get swallowed in it before closing the hatch. And when Vicker's felt Stenson's aura of command dissipate in the passing wind, he surrendered himself to the confines of the bridge, skirting inside, then back out to the starboard side with Ell-Tee.

He identified right away that his Lieutenant's mood was somehow sour.

"Sir, orders?"

It seemed that he didn't hear Vickers, but he had and fought himself to look away at the sea to address him. "Stand down after we're clear of shore."

"Yes, sir..." Ell-Tee's face strayed back to the water, causing Vicker's mouth to open in question. "Sir, something wrong?"

Again, Ell-Tee seemed to not have heard him; struggling again to look away from his sanctuary of the sea. "The damn birds and the bees, Corporal," he finally said, almost with a soured sigh. "Go fetch me some coffee, and I assure you I'll be back in my standard mood. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

When Vicker's had left, his head slumped lower than his shoulders, Ell-Tee was ready for the long night...he wanted the hours to tick by, counting his blessings that he had Stenson as a friend...

And a Commander for life.

* * *

Reading back over this...and a long time since I have seen this chapter (my poor editor has been engulfed with work and stress) I smiled when I came across Ell-Tee's real name, and realized I had forgotten I had made one for him. For me its a gem at a museum. Captivating to behold in your eyes, but never able to hold it. Will I mention his name again...no. In fact, if I were you all...I'd cherish it.

Thanks again, and of course, reviews are gratefully accepted at the door.

* * *


	31. A Final Salute

* * *

Greetings to all...again. Hehe! Welcome to chapter 31! Wow. Afraid though that another month is upon to wait and see what happens next after this one.

Okay, to start off with, I'm again introducing a few new characters in this, but some we may not see for quite sometime, and others we might see only as names being mentioned. I promise you that we will...I've started on another project that curtails the blood and guts of the subject matter in here, but we won't see it until this book and the next is completed, (and then next won't be as long, I hope) So, for any of those who do have a hard time following this chapter, you might need to retrace a few steps with the Prowers and Darien. Other than that...

Disclaimer: I observer the rights of the Sonic and Sega Team, plus all other characters and their owners that are not mine, plus I stand to gain no profit from this.

Enjoy!

* * *

**A Final Salute**

By: Mauser

* * *

Thank his gears he wasn't sipping something when the upheaval of alarms roared too close for comfort near his ears. Snively was sure he would have covered the screen he was musing over. Calming himself from the fluttering of his heart and involuntary jerking of his arms and head in the jolting surprise, he gathered his cool conscious as quickly as a field mouse would scurry away from a predatorily threat, and closed _his_ programs. He didn't have time to save. He knew he didn't have time to send out the last message for that matter. Unlike yesterday morning, his uncle was awake and in full prime of his lard and devious-self.

With a click from the keyboard, a fast flick at the cursor ball followed by an additional rummaging of keys, and the threat-display quickly became the curtain to cover his own dastardly doings. Mobius appeared observing its dark side. Staring with squinting eyes at the screen, Snively clicked to zoom in on the region where the satellite was centered. At first the same looming darkness. Then, passing the ionosphere on visual, the bulk cloud formations with rain hampered his view, causing him to click on the night vision. What appeared to be a star in a void of green caught his attention in a heartbeat. The last command to magnify came with it's own, inner reaction.

"_Not again!"_ he slammed in his head. His ballooned shaped face and long nose were covered in a glow of white and green.

Reaching over to the comm-link, Snively pressed the small button. "Uncle you need to come up here–"

"I'M ALREADY HERE YOU BUFFOON!"

Snively about leaped out of his chair. Defecating on himself was a sure possibility. Eggman's voice had a very unpleasant similarity to the alarm. However, when Snively spoke this time, his voice reflected his shakiness:

"It seems Rob-O has reorganized and is launching a counter-offensives in Mercia."

The short silence told him Eggman wasn't tuned to that idea as of yet. "Zoom in further and get more observations before stating your ignorance first, Nephew!"

His hands were relatively working over his brain. It was as if Eggman was in full control of his body now and not himself.

Passing the clouds and fog, the two Overlanders bore witness to the individual flashes of white on the screen. "Residual explosions," Eggman observed rather hastily. "This didn't happen too long ago. Pan East to the woods. We might be able to get a glimpse at our fleeing insurgent vermin."

Again, it seemed his uncle was driving his fingers for him, never consciously recollecting how the image swept over the land by his own digits giving the commands. But sure enough, right on the screen was the forest, carved in the overhead shot of the landscape was a snaking road. However, without the heat signatures of fleeing bodies. Snively winced for the coming fit of rage and the possible beating.

To his reprieve at the moment, it didn't come.

"Expand...check the surrounding area. Hurry, lackey! Time's afoot."

Doing his best to keep his head from sulking, Snively, under the same insane pressure, made quick work of the program and sooner than he thought, a view of the eastern forest from the coast engrossed the screen. At first the ambient light of the afire port concealed the artificial green terrain. Snively fixed that without the bother of his uncle interjecting his grievance for not being prompt. Such mindless inaction could really be his physical undoing.

Diminishing the flare, though, proved to be fruitless. Not a warm, living soul could be seen making haste through the forest.

"Doing a diagnostic check, uncle," Snively allowed himself to say. To kill the unnerving silence, which had become all he could stand, was at the forefront of his preoccupied mind. Like it wasn't noisy enough with the clapping of the keyboard.

"It won't matter," Eggman waved off. "My theory is that our systems are doing fine, and our induced walking famine are enjoying their quick victory from their planted delayed charges." A snort from his noise riffled the thick hairs of his mustache. "Why the quietness until late?"

"I'm waiting for your–"

"NOT FROM YOU, SNIVELY! From Mercia? We've had them under such a hammer over their anvil that we should have heard a peep of surrender by now! How on Mobius could they manage this?"

Snively was too afraid to answer, sinking his head under the keyboard while his uncle dictated his hand towards the screen, as if it was all Snively's mess. Instead, his fingers sought to respond, pushing commands in, a lot slower, but still moving at a good pace.

A return to the overhead image of the burning port glowed over their faces. Even with the dimmer applied, whiteout was all they saw. Between another eruption and the lingering fog over the water, nothing remotely showing the cause of the current calamity flourished. With this unspoken conclusion, Eggman saw no reason for his presence to be worth his time. Or at least that was how Snively saw it when he heard his uncle's footsteps signal his exit. His hopes of hearing them for the last time came to him under a faint smile. He felt he should turn and study his uncle's back, catching a final glimpse, and a cherished one at that. But he kept his eyes forward, rolling his fingers over the keyboard into a tight fist, leaving his expressionless face for the screen to know he was devising something–

"Uncle!"

Snively didn't hear the shuffle of Robotnick's reverse. But he did hear his quickened steps to the back of his chair. "What?..."

He pointed anyhow. There was hardly any need. From under the cloak of the fog and a stray cloud appeared a single glowing orb of white. Encrusted around it was a red point. In fact it looked like a slow moving knife.

"By sea they come," Eggman observed under an air that had this diminutive epiphany. And with it he leaned over, causing Snively to become tickled by his uncle's whiskers brushing his ear lobe. "My dear nephew, I have this feeling we've seen this ship before. Maybe not in full color, but a coincidence is hardly something I can fathom from what I see."

Swallowing, with a smile forming from it, Snively added to the reasoning, "I can do away with it."

The warm breath came out as whisper over his neck:

"Nothing would make me happier."

* * *

"Charles, I'm tracing a signal coming from Robotrololis!"

Nicole's rapid voice flung the white mustache hedgehog into action. "Keep at it, Nicole. I'm closing the programs now to give you a bandwidth to track it."

From a screen over his head and to the right, red letters of satellite codes and positions rolled across it. From the main screen, a global map of Mobius appeared with a shooting red line interconnecting said satellites. Uncle Chuck, though, was oblivious, exiting the last hyper-encrypted message before saving their current work. When he looked up, he about fell out of his chair in bewilderment.

"Merica!" Fixating himself to the current problem, he asked, "Is it encrypted?"

"Yes, but with the old cipher."

"What? Please tell me you have a virus."

"Be glad I don't. I'm deciphering it now..."

Flowing in a steady stream, Chuck's monitor became filled with line after line of perfectly legible letters, devoid of scantily legible symbols. However, the message was a mystery in itself.

"Launch immediately, break." Charles blinked with a daze as he read the rest of the message, "Engage fleeing target, break. One should do fine. End.

"Why write it like this and send it across with the old encryption?"

"It maybe possible that Eggman is wanting us to chase after this one," Nicole commented. "It's one of many calculations I have fathomed."

"What are the others?" Chuck asked, going over the message a second time with a hand under his nose.

"A glitch in his systems. Possibly sending this one out under the old when he intended it to go out with the new. The other possibility is just to see if we are listening."

"Then we do nothing with it, is that what you are suggesting?"

"At this moment, I'm not suggesting anything. Any action this soon could mean disaster. In a few hours, we'll have a satellite to pass over that part of the area. By then a decision could be made accurately."

Charles grabbed a few hairs under his nose and tugged at them to see if any would stray along with his grumbles. "Tell that to Sally when she walks in. You know how she is about _sitting_ on things."

"I know," Nicole conceded. "Which is why I believe my first observation might ring true.

"Course..." Chuck looked up to the screen from Nicole's coming rebuttal. "Rob-O could be in trouble."

Sir Charles Hedgehog let a troubled sigh seep from between his mustached lips. "Now that is something I didn't want to hear."

* * *

Heather's fine voice floated on the breeze over the stirring tall grass.

"What is he doing?"

Amadeus breathed in gently, his tunic rising and falling like the tide under a new moon. He stood in the field at a relative attention, though his bearing was broken by his wandering eyes looking at his brother. Along with it, his bending lips of a comforting smile. "Giving peace," he said.

What sparked the question, the smile, and the ebbing reply was Merlin. From afar, presiding over the last defensive trench toward the north, the robed fox, under his hood with his back turned from the trio, had his hands clasped in front of him, but this time unsheltered from his sleeves. Amadeus couldn't see nor hear if his brother was praying or giving an eulogy, however, he knew what he was offering to the dead. He'd seen it the few times after pitched battles during the Great War. With both eyes at one point. But it was here, and now after his return to Mobius, that Amadeus Prower felt a thanks whisk across the shadow of the fallen tank to his brother for what he was doing. In a perfect world all fallen solders, no matter the state of the war or battle, no matter if the enemy was grotesque or alike, they needed to be granted such whispers. Such profound wishes from the living. From Amadeus' stand point–and that beside a former enemy–no medals could shower the praise on a fallen comrade.

"_In war, only the dead have seen peace."_ the fox reflected on Mathias Drake's words; his last before King Max's orders sent the Dingo and the _Plunger_ away to the Overlander's doorstep to the east.

And of which, he stole a glance to.

Darien, with his bandaged left hand tucked against his chest, and Heather holding the arm of his wounded hand, was leaning against the hull of the slain tank. Where does one begin in looking for the irony of what laid before Amadeus. Below his shined boots was a field where a great many lives were lost in the defense of people whom they didn't know, until the family of foxes arrived. Beside him, his former enemy–Darien, with his wife at his side and their daughter playing in the field below the hill with _his_ son.

"_Is this how the afterlife for soldiers is?...To be in the company of their enemy? Enjoying the splendor of a world so removed from reality that you are part of another world. Is this what Mathias is enjoying?...Dining with his son and wife; talking to other spirits about their lives, of their pleasures–leaving the discussion of war to the living. _

"We are blessed, Darien," Amadeus said aloud, letting his last thoughts come to the open air. And here it felt so deservingly free. "We are blessed to share a gift that is only offered to our dead comrades."

Darien's head never left the bearing towards Merlin. "And what may that be?" he asked pensively.

"We both can look on at this. Experience this as we breathe."

"At what?...the doings of traitors?" Darien countered, still in a air of pondering.

"Look past it. Look at what it has done–brought me and you to this place. Finding understanding of what we should hold dear."

A titter came from the Overlander. Heather looked at him with a slight grimace.

"You speak as if you've trying to solve the stars, old fox."

"Am I?" Amadeus smiled. "I can tell you I have seen them, lived around them, but the stars share no meaning to what is here. You say you're not a soldier anymore?" A shallow nod from Darien, his attention wandering to Amadeus. "Do you honestly believe that now as you stand sentry to this forgotten field. The tank you're leaning on–what does the warrior in you feel about that?"

"I was a medic, Prower," Darien sounded off, turning his head to Merlin's back.

"Maybe so, but your inner calling says to tend to the wounded. Look where that calling has sent you...you're tending to the wounded now, preserving them if only in memory."

Amadeus watched the Overlander's head fall shy of a slump. "Then what does your calling say...why has it sent you here?"

The fox let a moment pass, letting Heather's eyes fall on him to ask for the reply.

"For my son to play in a field with my enemy's..." Amadeus stopped himself with a smile, "...with my friend's daughter."

* * *

"Hey, no fair!"

But fairness was the least of his needs. Tails was now "it" in the game of tag that Amber had initiated just out of boredom and a tad bit out of spite. But to her utter surprise and miscalculation, Tails was giving her the upper hand...literally. She dashed to the left, however, Miles just tilted his whipping tails and let the propulsion sweep him in her new direction. When she followed her break in travel with a _zag_, the flying fox was all too aware of her intended motion, adjusted, and turned into her as if she was a flying bot, and he, his _Tornado_ letting its plasma bolts extend out as his hands and shot her down with:

"You're_it_!"

But to Amber's credit, she tried to turn on Tails and leaped up to return the favor with a swinging hand. Tried, but failed, swatting the open air as the two-tailed fox increased his effort and thus, lifted further away.

* * *

"We had our own traitor, you know," Amadeus said, sounding as if he was confessing a sin, but hardly his own. "A Drago from the Wolf Pack. From what Commander Geoffrey St. John told me, after I and Rosemary returned, that his wife was duped by him to kill Sally, using a mask that looked like Jules' son, Sonic."

"I never heard the whole story behind that," Darien said after a slight pause, still taking in the sun with Heather. "In fact, up until now, there was no mention of a traitor in _your_ midst. But that's the news for you."

Amadeus fully turned his posture to Darien. "You said yesterday you had sold us scrap? Where'd you get it?"

"Here...they–" Amadeus rose the brow from his good eye on the correction. "Aleutian dished out one damn good beat-down to the coming tide that awaited your son, Prower."

"But you weren't here to see it?" the General countered, sounding surprised.

"I know, Prower. C'mon, look around you. Put what you said to me in your own mind. Three fall-back ridges, a tank overlooking the first one and with it covering the second as a line of retreat, and the last one where your brother's presiding over–resistence fighters from the magnitude I saw couldn't possibly devise this up. And like hell Richfield was going to let his greed and embitterment towards you go to waste."

"Aleutian's grenadiers?" General Prower remembered aloud.

Darien gave a fisted knock on the slain tank behind him. "His hammer! First time I saw a Mobian willingly working beside an Overlander, and an Overlander letting Mobians operate in _his_ tank."

A strange look fell upon Amadeus' face. "Berdan?"

The Overlander shook his head slightly, watching the fox's ears become pointedly alert. "You wouldn't know his name if I said it–"

"And I might if you did."

"Hardly, he was still in school when you lost your eye, and when Colin Kintobor was killed. Brad Kalmuso; never saw a lick of action until coming here...with his tank!" Darien saw every question roll through Prower's eye. "The dark man–not by nature but color–didn't know lice from dandruff about tank warfare. He knew how to operate it, but he was shy of knowing where to stick it to Robotnick. But General Berdan did."

Amadeus shuddered on the different meaning of the phrase. "You can say that again."

"Oh, yeah, but you'd think ole _Iron Fist_ would teach Brad the fundamentals." Amadeus' look was almost priceless: a cocked head with gawking, questing eyes. Darien smirked, knowing that the fox had guessed right in his surprise. "He saw what you and your son sees in Aleutian. Flippin leadership." And a greedy, broad smile touched at the Overlander's lips. "This became the echidna's tank."

"And this Brad?"

"Couldn't care less. I never saw a smile so broad on any being's face after they returned. Why? He got to see something go _Boom_! He got to see his tank be put into action. And I did too."

The fox stepped forward, letting his eye study the tank further, turning his head some to view the turret to his left. "You went with?" he asked, as if he were shy to say it.

"Only twice before _they_ assigned me to the rear. A former Commander from my old brigade named Thompson asked me to tend _any_ possible front line injuries when Richfield gave the order to thrust forward. So, Aleutian had his own medic from the Plunger. Kyle I think his name was, but he was more skilled about machines and girls than to fix someone. Truthfully, now that I look at it, my reassignment was from Commander Thompson was for Marcus and Richfield to kill the lot of them. Remember I had said about shoddy runs." Amadeus nodded firmly, quizzically. "After Berdan was killed with his Mobian counterpart, Jerihmia, they sent Aleutian and his grenadiers–which Emi-La and part of the crew that Mathias sent were 'abunch of–on these raids to either get them out of the way, or get them killed."

Prower squeezed his face into a troubled expression. "Why?" His voice was like a dull spear being weakly flung.

"He was trained. The people they were trying to slaughter weren't. When Richfield tried to teach them some bad tactics–heck _I_ saw them as bad tactics–Aleutian would try to correct it.

"And Emi-La was catching on. She was the danger to them, and something tells me what Marcus and Richfield did next, with Thompson's help, was to separate the two echidna's."

"And did they?" came the fox, soundly angry, but also sounding afraid of what the outcome may have been.

"I don't know. I'd put my own two and two together, and with Emi-La's help. The conversation I listened in on was about the two love-birds, but I didn't hear the whole damn thing, only that they needed to do something about them and soon. It was Thompson who said it."

"And that's when you left?" Amadeus added.

"Why I had to _run_...Marcus opened the damn door with me dumbstruck in the middle of it."

But none of it still made sense to General Amadeus Prower. Not of what Darien went through, but Aleutian. Amadeus still felt the Guardian had nothing to be ashamed about. A betrayal of trust only comes to light at the bitter end. One can't see it coming because one usually doesn't want to believe that it is coming. For a young boy, like Aleutian, and one Amadeus could see as himself at one point during his youth, trust is everything, and denial is always at the forefront. No one could blame him...but himself. And he kept everything from everyone. This place. Names of his friends. Names of the dead. He kept them all to himself, and for Amadeus it didn't make any sense why someone like Aleutian would hold them from needing ears to–

"_...Oh, my..."_

It hit him harder than the shot that took his eye. It stung his heart fiercer than watching his sight fade from Rosemary when he was robotosized. His very word he stopped himself from saying in his mind bore all of this into him as the conclusion came with it. _"Aleutian didn't _listen_ to his lover."_

He let his betraying face turn away from the Overlander couple and let it fall to the shelter of his brother's back. But even with his psyche dwelling with the plight of whether or not to speak, he overcame the chills and the heart gripping pains to speak.

"For the love of Aurora...what must be going on in that boy's head."

* * *

Amber drifted her keen eyes up and down the Hover-bot's hull from the inside. Why the perplexity when all she had to do was stray from the confides of her home and venture to the dilapidated nest of the same lineage of Robotnick Prime's mode of transportation and terror from the skies? Darien's ultimatum of being grounded for life. It possibly wouldn't have mattered anyhow, she thought to herself at one stage of a rebellion; the batteries were probably dead that they couldn't even open the rear door to one of the machines.

But with another exploratory venture with her wide eyes, the risk she was burdened with could've been worth the taking. Her imagination was limitless with the fun she might have had. Watching Tails at the control console, giving his fingers a good working at the control panel, hearing his efforts hum to life, watching the joy on his efforts echo the satisfaction of the reward they both were hearing, Amber felt a surge of incredible aspiration to start one of the lame bots around them on her own just to be like Tails.

Little did she know the price Miles had to pay and endure to get where he is now in his young life. To have no childhood.

However still, the young boy's voice never reflected such regrets when he at last spoke, "That just about does it." Turning to Amber, he let a smile consume his muzzle. "The onboard ultra-magnetos should keep this hunk-of-junk running and charged for the trip home."

Amber's keen eyes developed into a sheepish envy. "How do you know so much of this?"

Tails couldn't quite tell if she was mocking him or being sincere. But he went for it anyway. "I just do, Amber. When we were just us few and nobody around after Robotnick took over, some of us had to take charge, you can say, and do what we needed to do."

"But how come you seem to like it?...Did you ever feel forced to do learn it? I mean, c'mon–have you ever gone to school and had to learn somthin' you didn't like?" Amber's waiting pause was picturesque: hands on her hips, and a trying look to boot.

Tails response to her was weird. Strange he would shrug with dwelling questions and thoughts about who he was.

"I don't know to be honest. Rotor–my friend back in Knothole and as Sonic would say, 'a way past cool walrus'–was like my teacher. He is the real brains for mechanics and devices. I just learned from his mistakes and troubleshooting, I guess, when I even knew how to kick a ball. Turned out that kicking machines sometimes made them work, too."

"But d'ya see what I mean?" Tails gazed at Amber with a quizzical look upon his brow. "You were forced to learn it. Do you enjoy it? Will you ever give it up when you're older?"

At a loss for words, Miles shrugged. A search for an answer didn't seem that hard. Even the answer seemed plain.

"The way I figure it, Amber, I think I would have gotten into the stuff anyways." He let a silence consume him at first, figuring out what Amber was really fishing for. "Will I ever give it up?" he asked himself, as if Amber's question was his own. "Gee...really I haven't thought of it. Maybe–perhaps. It depends on what my interests are when I get older. But at any rate, gears, wires, and nuts and bolts are sure looking promising."

Amber's eyes strayed from Tails and over his shoulder. The fox turned to see the panel lighting up like one of Robotnick's factories he, Sonic, Sally, and the rest of the young gang had once destroyed. Walking toward the blinking console, his pupils sought the message comm where a disturbing red light was fiercely blinking. Touching a button beside it, Sally's surly voice registered through the speaker:

"General Prower–please send a situation report on your whereabouts, ASAP! Knothole out!"

"Is it that quick?" Amber asked from behind Tails.

"What?"

"Her saying the message so fast?"

A shallow bow from the fox's head wasn't moving. "We have to, now. Eggman can just as easily track our messages back and forth from each other just about as fast as I can dash with my tails at full speed. I had to shut down the bot before supper last night so his bots couldn't track us by the onboard electronics."

"Is it that bad?"

Tails again nodded gently. "All we're doing now is hoping that things will turn around."

* * *

Darien stepped away from the tank and approached Amadeus. Both locked their posture and eyes to Merlin after observing each other's presence.

"So, will you build another _Plunger_?" asked the Overlander.

A sigh from Amadeus stirred from his lips after awhile. "It's not for me to say. More for Elias. I'm afraid another weapon such as the _Plunger_, or for that matter, even another Mathias, couldn't help. We produced the sub to combat you resupplying operations. Not to stop machines. Mostly, Eggman is sending his logistics through the air, and he has that controlled with a fleet we don't even have the means to take down."

"I thought you had an airbase?" Darien asked.

"We do, but it seems my son is the only qualified pilot."

Darien nodded for what Amadeus conjured to be his own business. From the way the Overlander pursed his lips, he felt a correction ease through his mind. "How–"

Amber's laugh interrupted his thoughts and his gaze at Amadeus. Both Mobian and Overlander turned to the south. Amadeus saw Heather smiling as she leaned against the tank. Smiling before he or Darien did. Amber was being hoisted through the air by her wrists under Tails' deformed power.

"How are you heading back to Knothole?" Darien continued.

"I suppose the same way we came; over the foot hills of the Great Forest. My son said the mountains were sure to give him a bad ride."

"May I make a suggestion?" Darien offered.

"As long as it doesn't involve losing my other eye, sure."

With his face melting in repose, Darien still kept an even gaze at Amber and Tails when he spoke:

"Take the direct way...northeast across the Great River."

"Why," Amadeus asked, facing Darien with his hands tucking into his pocket. His right finding the hole-laden object from yesterday.

"If you find it, then you'll know why. And if you do know after that...ask Aleutian for the other reason."

Amadeus' mouth fell the slightest towards gravity. A moment passed when his will to speak came trickling back. "Why can't you tell me now?"

Watching the Overlander swallow indicated to Amadeus his question had struck a chord. A feeling washed over him just as quickly when Tails set Amber down then himself; Darien possibly would have whispered his reply even when the two didn't come.

"Because I don't know what happened myself."

Amber was greeted by her mother with arms open, however, Tails greeted his father with a grim face. "Dad, Sally wants us to check in! She didn't sound too happy."

Amadeus waved his left hand gently to his son while his right came out from his pocket with the oblong device. "We'll talk to her when we are clear away from here."

Darien smiled, almost sarcastically. "Thanks, Prower, maybe there is hope for you after all."

A nod was all Amadeus would give. His right hand rose to the Overlander's face. "Can you tell what this is that my son found yesterday?"

Darien took the object slowly from Amadeus' hand as if it were going to sting him if he grabbed it the wrong way, and brought it further up to his eyes. The way he studied it, the way he held it might have made one think Darien had never seen such a small contraption before. But Amadeus was all the wiser. He could see an old nightmare return freshly to the man's eyes.

Darien studied the object further for a second more until he mustered his voice to his throat. "It's an ion-grenade, Amadeus. Something us 'stranded' Overlanders made in case Robotnick came calling again to the _Territory_." Cupping the edge of the device firmly around his thumb and forefingers with his right hand, he smashed the top down with his open left and whirled it over the mound towards the foremost trench. It fell just shy of it.

Nothing transpired.

"Dead...only could be used once," Darien elaborated. "The 'smack' was to activated the battery and you had to get rid of the thing before it gave you a harsh sunburn. It shot a barrage of protons through those holes. I swear you could read a newspaper at night when one was touched off."

Tails chimed in, "I thought so. But Merlin said it was raining here when the fight happened, so how can the grenades work?"

The hooded fox to everyone's backs became the focal point for Darien's eyes. "I don't know. How does he even know that it rained?"

Amadeus cued in to the question. He too looked to his brother. "He just does. I noticed the trees that were blown apart down at the edge of the forest didn't have any scorch marks. It was that what indicationed to me that it did."

"Plus it rained during the invasion of Knothole," Tails added mournfully. He saw his father's eyes fall upon him as his left hand shuddered. Miles knew the image he fed into his father's mind. Miles, however, still felt the utter hopelessness of seeing Robotnick march into the Freedom Fighters' hut.

"Why all this?" Amadeus said with a breath. "Why did Robotnick work up all of this to attack Knothole? Just to have the last _coup de grace_? He just could have attacked outright." His face aligned with Darien's. "Snively...he wanted all resistance dead, didn't he?"

Darien didn't nod, nor did he fester any semblance of an emotion that could have been construed as an answer. From what Amadeus gathered from the total silence; he was right, but was disturbingly sure Darien didn't know why himself.

* * *

Their walk to the edge of the forest was like a gliding wind. Their cumbersome trek to the powered hover-bot was like a exercise in which species could get the most amusement out of the situation. But with all laughs aside, the open door to the hover-bot with the three foxes standing just at the foot of it, brought a somber silence to Darien's family. Only smiles were the language at the moment for the offering fair wells.

It wasn't until Darien extended his good hand out for Amadeus to grasp that a seemingly undestroyable barrier was smashed to the four winds. For Mobian and Overlander to find some sort of an accord.

"General Prower, I wish we could have met under better circumstances. Under better wishes."

Amadeus took the leap and met Darien's hand with a firm squeeze. "I will rely everything you've told me to King Elias Acorn. You have my word as a fellow soldier, Wallace...as a friend."

Taking his hand away with a smile, Darien returned, "Really, I don't care what you tell the current King, Amadeus." The fox's quizzical expression was expected. "It's my patient I worry about, sir. I did everything I could to save him from the brink of the death and like hell I want him to throw it all away just by killing himself."

Darien then darted his eyes to Tails, who was standing between his father and Uncle. "Please give the ring to him with my sincere apology, Tails. It's all I ask from you all."

Miles heard the choke in the man's voice. "Sir, I will," he promised.

Heather found her arms around Amadeus. "Thank you, sir, for coming on your majesty's request."

"Ma'am," Amadeus said, returning the embrace, "I wouldn't be holding to my duties if I didn't." Releasing his hold, he faced a smile at her's. "And on that thought, a king couldn't be granted the hospitality you have given us. Thank _you_ for letting His rest under your roof."

Amber met Tails with a handshake and a hug, saying, "Good-bye," and, "you're a cool pal." Miles only smiled in return.

Merlin on the other hand, figured he was noble enough to bow his head for everything. Heather saw it as unfitting from the emotions he expressed yesterday afternoon. She–like for Amadeus–gave him a warm embrace, of which, Merlin gladly returned.

"You have a fine family, my dear. I shall pray to Aurora that she looks after you all. Your charge, to me, has met the qualifications to have her guarding eyes on all of you."

Turning away, Merlin saw a tear glimmering from Heather's eye. "Thank you, sir."

Darien stepped forward to the royal magician and offered his hand. "I'm sorry for the things I've said, Merlin."

"_He's too hard on himself..."_

What came to Merlin was a male voice not of his own. The attributes he was about to express to Darien wasn't that of what came through on the wind. His right ear pivoted slightly to the north where the voice had come from. Then his eyes shied away from Darien's just by chance he could catch a glimpse of the origin of the voice. Through the cuts of light through the forest, Merlin didn't see anything save the trees and the decapitated tank.

His shake almost ceased. Darien looked on to Merlin strangely. "Everything alright?"

Merlin found himself back in the corporeal life with a sheepish smile protruding from his lips. "Why, yes. Just my imagination is all...Again, sir, thank you, and I shall have my thoughts on you and your family. What you are doing sir for the preservation of this place is unmatched by all the good deeds done before us."

When Darien released the magician's hand, a coming peace seemed to have finally arrived. When Tails and Merlin walked inside the hover-bot, an unseen pen had capped itself from the elements. Amadeus could feel this. So much so that as he stepped inside the weapon that at one time was used against his son, as he turned around to Darien and his family, he felt the ink settle on the paper of an atone that existed between him, and only him and Darien.

"I will seek for Aleutian to be knighted, Darien," he said, raising his voice over the excited engine of the hover-bot. "Maybe it might open him up?"

"Maybe..." Darien shouted, "if you give him a chance at some duties, the soldier in _him_ might come out. His friends need it to be remembered."

Amadeus gave a sharp affirming nod. "I know it!" he said, and turned back inside–

But he stopped halfway from reaching over to the door control switch and closing it. Instead he pivoted around as if he forgot something. In fact he did, and he had to shout out to Darien so he could retrieve it.

"Darien Wallace!"

The Overlander stopped midway from turning around himself, being the rear guard to his family's retreat to the open field, then to home. When his eyes fell upon Amadeus, a force that he hadn't felt come over him for many years past, surged through his veins and into his heart locked his legs down, and straightened his back.

The fox had that much of an instilled pride in his own bearing to make a forgotten soldier, like Darien, do the same.

And with it, his arm rose up from his side, straight and true. It bent at the elbow and creased a perfected forty-five degree angle, allowing his knifed hand to center right over his right brow.

Darien returned the salute...just as crisp...just as neat with pride, however holding it as his eyes took to him Amadeus.

"_Thank you, Darien," _Amadeus proclaimed with his eyes, thrusting his arm back to his side under a firm, sincere expression of pride.

Across the void, it was thanked in the same matter in thought, _"Thank you, Amadeus...thank you."_

The last Darien saw when his right hand fell to his side like a machine slowly becoming crippled with the lose of hydriodic fluid, was Amadeus fishing for the control panel for the door, for he had too, because he never let his eyes leave the him...only when the door closed between them.

* * *

Along the field as the hover-bot pulled sharply up and began it's journey to the northeast, Darien and his family arrived out of the edge of the forest to give their last waving good-bye. When the dot of the hover-bot vanished over the horizon, their journey to their home began; Darien having his hands over his wife's shoulders and of his daughter's. The coming winds were the only sounds now. The grass becoming the only standard waving as a flag.

For the eyes that presided over this, it was close to the afterlife that he has come to waiting for.

His pointed ears fidgeted with the wind. His nose sniffed the smell of late summer air. The charred skin on his chest began to fuse, heal. Orange-red fur soon grew from where the pale naked skin had been. But the pain wasn't there from burns...Only regret.

"_Kyle!...Kyle!"_

The female voice from behind him never did get his response. He just stayed his eyes to the approaching family. Only when her heard scampering footsteps from behind him did he even acknowledge her presence with the turn of his head.

"_Hey, are you coming? She's waiting for us!"_

From his kneeling position, Kyle eyed over his shoulder a female squirrel he felt the fostered fondness for since the day he laid his brown eyes on her exhume from his ceased-beating heart. Her beauty was materializing back to when he remembered her: whole, her body seemingly healing from the explosion that had ravaged her apart.

"_Just give me a sec, Ashley," _he said to her before turning his attention back to the Wallace's. They were at the foot of the first trench. _"I just want to see him one last time."_

"_Darien?...He can't be thanked enough. I just can't see why he is so hard on himself?...or even yourself, Kyle?"_

A sigh floated along the wind from the fox. The sun's rays pierced through his body, leaving no shadow of his presence. _"My reasons are my own, Ashley."_

"_He's been carrying the burden more than you have. And I don't mean Darien."_

"_I know,"_ he sighed, standing and turning to the squirrel. _"And look, it's easing for him. His pains are healing as are ours...he's coming back, Ashley."_

The sun forced it's rays upon them. Like a road being formed, Kyle and Ashley ventured for each others hands while they turned towards the calling path. It was finally here...their time. Their last retreat...

* * *

"Dad, LOOK!"

Tails' shrill jolted Amadeus to the left window, almost toppling over his brother to get there. When all he saw was the shore of the Great River moving fast over them, he turned his attention to his son and said, "Go for another pass."

Tails executed a hard sweeping turn and brought the center of his alarm to the windscreen. He brought the bot into a hover as he and his father stared on.

Like tombstones, the pillars of a oncestanding bridge rose from the water. At the shores were sandy beaches to either side, but bordered by cliffs at each end. The spans themselves were crumbled on top of each other, lapping water beating upon them as their carcases were stained with brown mud and dirt. But it was the pillars themselves that got Amadeus' attention. What was left of the white, square concrete structures, five in all, had an assortment of holes, burn marks, and several large chunks eaten out of the columns. Only the center span stood up from the water, raised about three hundred and seventy feet from the river.

"My goddess, what happened here?" Amadeus gasped.

A silence followed as eyes looked on.

"Dad, look...I can see a barrel of something."

And Tails was right! Amadeus peered to where his son had pointed and could see a long, large tube trickling into view from the ebbing river.

"Amadeus?"

Merlin's voice became the knife to rip his brother's attention from the windscreen. The sorcerer looked perplex and hypnotized.

"Brother, I'm hearing explosions and gun fire."

"What else?" Amadeus pressed. "Any voices? Any screams?"

"No...wait!"

Tails was now intently focused on his uncle.

The silence could have become a black hole on the hover-bot.

"There's nothing now," Merlin confessed, almost saddened about it.

"What...what d'ya mean?" Tails harped.

"Son, just wait, give him some breathing room," Amadeus said, still looking at his brother. "Merlin?"

Again, another pause in silence.

"I'm al...alright. But it was strange, Amadeus?"

"What...please, Merlin."

"Well, I swore I heard angry buzzing...like large bees high above all of this."

Amadeus took two steps back and fell into his chair. For a moment, he was at a loss. "Tails, let's get home. We need to find a lost soul and speak with him. I have this feeling the invasion force Robotnick sent in was just a mere sideshow to what, I think, was stopped."

* * *

"_Ashley?"_

"_Yes, Kyle..."_

"_He is coming back...and they better stay out of his way."_

* * *

Well, what did you all think? Was it good? Bad? To be honest I felt a little energy leave from this one, and even coming back to it and editing it, I couldn't find any energy to possibly make it stronger in certain areas. But the outlook on this was spectactular when I was writing this...Two soliders meeting on a field of battle not their own, and coming together to give the slain peace. Why I titled this chapter "A Final Salute." In my opinion, all wars should end like this.

But alas, the world has become cruel and honor goes by the wayside. Such a shame. I for one in my wonderings in life practice the code of Bushido. It's a very honor-bound code, and one that has prospered with me, as I have with it, in my life.

For now, we now a little more about Aleutian...next chapter, I promise you will be filled to the brink about him, and a family life he had runaway from and is seeking to run back to it. A bit of a split scene from Brother to Brother...but, until next month.

Please review...and Sara...it's okay!!

* * *


	32. Tomorrow's Children, Today's Voices

Greetings to all and a very warm welcome back to those who have been following this. I hope all you Sonic and Knuckles fans are ready for this!

I've been taking a bit of a break with writing...mostly by events and not me getting lax. The good news is, my voice has come back to me and much thanks goes to this chapter. Some new material and hopefully the full power drive to finish this one will come of it. I have the next chapter started, but by my work ethic and how I structure things out...I am very behind.

But, in so doing, this should occupy everyone for at least a month. Its close to 20,000 words and I never knew it was until I did the word count when I was done. Idea after idea after idea poured onto this chapter. I planned this one to be a filler of time but not the readers. I couldn't shorten it, and like heck I wanted to lengthen it. And in so being...I gave it a book title instead of a standard chapter title because its fitting. The one I had planned will come, but later.

Okay, the short preview for this: I kinda rejuvenated Sonic and Knuckles' old rivalry, and brought out more of Aleutian and possibly past family life for him, and then later, Knuckles. I hope I explained some of the fighting maneuvers in this clearly. I've noticed something in my writings as of late and that is I kinda jump to different main ideas in mid paragraph, so that is the latest thing I'm doing my best to work on. (Please, tell me other factors that I'm weak in and need to improve)

As for the length...kinda approach this a true book--through in cyberspace its a crap-shoot--and find places to stop and come back to. I know its rough on a website. Good ole cut-copy-and-paste works.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic and his friends.

Again, but this time, I truly thank you for being my audience.

* * *

**Tomorrow's Children, Today's Voices**

By: Mauser

* * *

Locke's critical eyes scoured over every inch of Aleutian's body. It seemed no matter how steady the younger Guardian stride to keep himself: holding his stance with his knees bent and his heels raised just high enough to slide a thin sheet of paper under, while holding his fists out from his chest, Aleutian could tell from his father's cynical gaze his efforts weren't enough. It all begged himself to ask his soul again; how far has he strayed from what feels like a former self?...From the skills of what made him who he was from before? The realization of how much he was out of touch with his own life seemed like a crushing blow to his heart that could've at worse killed him.

Taking in a deep breath, he concentrated further on his efforts. Lowering himself, he began to feel satisfied with his renewed stance, until the pain emerged from muscles that he thought were still conditioned. They came from his legs the most; burning aches as the lactic acid was building in the tissues. Aleutian searched for a solution under the agitating pain to rid it from his body. _"Breathe,"_ he reminded himself. And so he did, with shallow intakes through his nose before exhaling them out through his mouth.

Weak shadows passed over the land as cirrus clouds from the heavens passed over them like a white sheet of silk. Their drifting movements seemed to bring on a thin breeze, wandering through the gaps of the trees and tickling at Aleutian's fur. The punishment from the heat was relenting, but still the pain was evident, and he knew it would stay with him.

Yet, his father's eyes looked over him in critical affirmation. A feeling washed over Aleutian, sensing it coming from Locke's gaze. Like a cool, clammy notion that he was doing something wrong, feeling embarrassed because of it, stiffening his face to the same degree. He let his eyes fall to the ground for not even a second, almost hoping a renewed sight of his father might come with it. None did. Only of Locke tucking his left hand under his right elbow while letting his right hand pensively stroke his beard.

"Well, there's nothing we can't fix," he said plainly, breaking the silence of the wind at last. Aleutian collapsed his stance to one of defeat. His head followed suit to the leaf littered ground. When he looked up, Locke was making his way to him. "Don't be ridiculed about it, Aleutian. I said it's fixable, not irreparable."

Aleutian fought within himself to speak louder than how he felt. "It's just–"

Locke's gentle hand on his scared cheek cut him off. "I know it's the pain, son. Believe me, I know. But sometimes you have to endure pain so you can replace it with strength." Locke watched his son nod on his words. He then let his hand trace the long gash on son's face, caressing it warmly, fugitively. "Sometimes remembering a pain helps us remember who we once were. Sometimes a long ago pain can replace the ones we endure now."

"Like my indifference to you?"

Locke shock his head slightly, closing his eyes before opening them to his son. "I see that pain fading from you. As for me?...it puts me in a place where I wish I could revisit physically. It pains me to remember when I thought you were dead. But that pain becomes overpowered with joy when I remember the day Athair told me you were alive and strong. What I wished was for you to come back then, so you and I could do what we are doing now. Yes, it hurt me when you said no, made me embittered more with you. And now, those pains are leaving me, too. They started to when I first saw you in the chamber. They truly began when I Archy told me you were in love. When his news brought reason why you didn't come home."

Aleutian's brows lowered with his head. "Even how I came back to you, dad? All that garb I wore."

A stout bow and a twist of Locke's face said something comforting about it, like he was trying to find his son's visage. "And the pain I felt from seeing you in it; the pain you felt because you wore it. The pain of your mother's hand across my face because she knew what it meant. But it all went away from me when I saw you burn those things, finding in the ashes a joy that came to me, knowing you are willing to suppress yours.

"All you were asking was for help. And I'm here." Sighing, Locke released his touch from Aleutian. "But where to begin. I'm sorry to say it, but you're a mess."

"Ah, gee, thanks, _Pop_!"

Locke chuckled. "Hey, I'm only saying what I see. But you still want it, right?"

Aleutian narrowed his eyes on the challenge. "Do cows fly?"

"I don't think so," Locke replied quizzically.

"Well, they do in my world."

Locke's laugh was heartfelt. Not because of the quip remark, but it had so far been the only humorous thing Aleutian had said to him. Things were indeed looking up for his son.

"Okay, get back into you stance," he said. As Aleutian found his footing again, and stuck his fists out close to his chest, Locke cut around him. First he observed his right side, grasping his hands on Aleutian's flanks and arms and finding they were rigid and solid in form. The way Aleutian was bladed off, an attack to his right would have had an uneasy time getting through to him. Coming behind, Locke slid his boot passed Aleutian's right shoe on the left. When he tried to kick his stance out from under him, Aleutian seemed to have a solid hold to the ground. If it were a real attack, a chance existed that his son could've been sent to the ground.

And as Locke approached Aleutian's left side, gauging his left fist was a little too far forward, and that his elbow wasn't tucked against his rib cage, his real test was about to come. With his right hand becoming flat like a knife, Locke didn't even cock his arm at the elbow to deliver his thrust. He instead let the rise from his right side become the inertia of the impact, hurling his strike at Aleutian's head with lightning quickness.

His knife hand never met his son's cheek.

It was more reflex than muscle memory. Or was it? All Aleutian could discern was out of the corner of his left eye, something ringed in his head that something was wrong, something out of the ordinary in his father's movements ordered his left arm to slam backwards. His forearm caught Locke's thrust and diverted it away. The sting from the impact was there, but a better feeling stung at Aleutian's senses.

An adrenalin surge!

"Good! Excellent, son! Now why didn't you follow up and--" Locke slammed his left fist under Aleutian's sternum and drove it onwards, "–attack me?"

He felt his father's spiked knuckles dig in to him. He felt the force of the drive push the wind out of him, and himself off balance and over toward the ground. He was on his side like lightning, the clap of thunder echoing from his body thudding on the ground and his _umph _of the rest of the air being expelled from his lungs.

A daze fell upon his senses. He didn't know where he was from a brief instant. Only that he needed to breathe. Lights flickered when he squinted his eyes from the pain. Colors of red, ever clear, blue–_"and green!"_

Black blotches dotted the white fur of a figure nestled in his mind. A charcoal gi clothed the figure to the waist, synched to him with a black, cloth belt. A white top looking like a size to big of a bath robe drapped his chest, but gapped open enough to expose his chest, showing black blotches on his fur. But it was the blue and green that flickered in Aleutian's sight, funneling a notion to stand and to do it fast that hammered at his straining mind. Why? Because a past pain that his father just spoke about lapsed everything that involved situational awareness, and adaptation of said situation and spoke to him as if it were his own voice, yelling at him to get up and get up now! Because he knew if he didn't, a sailing journey through the air was to come by a giant, three paw foot under his side.

At least in this one second period that was what his mind was relocating.

Aleutian rolled over completely as a fast getaway and used his left leg at the knee to propel him up to his feet with the inertia of his roll. His solid fighting stance was back under him, his breathing deeper that shook him with every intake, but his eyes were attuned to his father. He hardly noticed his hands were out in front of him; no more the fists, but like his father's initial strike, curved knives at the fingers.

For a moment, Locke gazed at Aleutian's bridled aggression in his stance. What struck his son to shoot up like he did, Locke could only fathom. Was it his reaction he had just seen from the block Aleutian executed just moments before? Had his inner warrior awakened from his dormancy? Did it take just that do to it? _"No...noting is that easy,"_ he concluded to himself. And he was correct with the sight that lay before him. Aleutian's stance had indeed become a little better, but not by much. And there was something else Aleutian wasn't grasping; something he was going to have to break.

Stepping forward, Locke closed the small void to his son. He watched Aleutian's eyes become fixed on his, from what Locke could surmise as his son attempting to discern whether he was going to strike again, or do something entirely different. When Locke's hands were in reach of his son's, he reached up to them and closed Aleutian's fingers into fists. His clasp radiated comfort through his son's gloves.

And Aleutian felt it.

"You fight with your weapons of who you are, Aleutian," Locke softly said, catching Aleutian's eyes wandering up to his. "Contrary to your grandfather Spectre's wishes, your fists, for you right now, is how you channel your resolve to our enemies." Locke could see the question rolling in his boy's eyes. Thus he rubbed the spiked knuckles under his fingers. "These are our weapons. What other's may use as a strike could never amount to the pain we deliver with these. Sometimes we need to fight dirty to win. Knuckles is the epitome of that thought."

Aleutian's stare grew stern. "I know, father."

And why did he? Because his teacher taught him the same belief through pain as well? Or was it because how Knuckles had brought him home? By force.

"Okay," Locke offered under a fresh wave of thought, "bring your right fist this time to where your rib cage meets you stomach." When Aleutian did as he was instructed, Locke beamed a smile. "Okay, when you strike the air, roll your fist out and let your knuckles drill at your target."

"And what is my target?" Aleutian asked.

"Me...deliver all your rage towards me. Ready? GO!"

* * *

It was amazing what could infuriate him. At a time, a certain blue hedgehog with a boisterous carefree smile, possess what seemed like an unlimited supply of snide, quip remarks was like pouring white gas to what was already a volatile mixture of rage, devotion to duty, and red-silk fur. But now that same hedgehog was lying on his back, his hands stroking his spines from what he knew was a coming triumph–if all went well. And at a time, an oppressive army from an extended bloodline of _his_ family was like a primer to a cartridge, setting him off to pound the ever living daylights out of them. But as time became the contrast of the past and present, it seemed his family was coming together over a collective strife.

Still, Knuckles flung his right mitt over a tight fist through the air, taking great care and skill that he didn't over extend his elbow, and rolled his punch so that his inborn weapons could have a broader impact radius.

"_Don't give your enemy your full arm, just enough to push him back with interest."_

Locke's voice filtered over the one thing that was mustering his soul to combat. And it wasn't the heat. It wasn't Sonic loafing. It even wasn't the thought that Julie-Su was absent from his current frame in life.

When he heard a breath slice through the silent air, he stepped with his left foot to enforce his left uppercut. He grinned with bearing his teeth; the singing from outside had resumed.

It was this that had sparked him to stand and burn with his anger to rip the machines apart from the outside. _"Kids!"_ Kids to cover his presence, their soft singing voices eroding their movements...and Knuckles was finding it hard to contain himself from erupting. But what pampered his calmness and discipline was none other than Antoine. The coyote was a model for keeping it cool. Sonic was just a model of how to be too cocky when fecal matter could hit the rotating cooling device. _"Confidence–cockiness–crash, my son. Our land could never survive such ambiguous approaches to ourselves. Never lose sight of reality."_

"Yes, father," Knuckles murmured as if Locke were beside him.

"What was that, Red?" Sonic said, twitching his emerald eyes to the poised echidna.

Knuckles swept his left leg as he turned completely around.If a bot or any other beings with diminutive intentions were behind him, their ankles would've been knocked from under them. "Nothing, just asking myself why you're being lazy and not stretching–" A lightning right fist crashed through the air, Knuckles propelling his whole body with it in a shove forward from his legs, "–yourself out."

Sonic rolled Knuckles' grunted remark in his head for a few moments. The children's singing helped to dissolve his conclusion. "Nah, I'm always primed for the action. The action just needs to get primed for me."

The Guardian could only picture Sonic now as if he were the air he just punched. The barb thought was amusing for a moment: Sonic through the wall, Antoine patting him on the back and perhaps saying, _"Aboutz time you did zomething to zhat menace!"_ But Knuckles had to return his logic to practical means.

"It wouldn't hurt, Blue," he said promptly, "how slow you've been lately, I would feel safer if–"

"Oh, don't kid yourself, Knux. You just want me on–"

Antoine's voice was like a welcomed battering ram to Sonic's drone. "Zhut-up Zonic!" And before Knuckles could relax his stance, the coyote had marched himself over to the source of his rage. He stood over him like an imposing wall. "I've had juzt enough outz of you to...to...well, hurtz you very badly."

Sonic took a moment to examine Antoine's eyes deeper. His smile was all too bold. "Well, alright, 'Ant! Where did you find a spine? Under that wade of fake hair of your's?"

The Coyote was far from amused. He clicked his heels and pinched the collar of his shredded tunic. "I have you know, zwine, zhat Bunnie likes who I am, and I could give a tail less of what you zhink of moi!" And with that, the Royal Guard walked off back to his post by the wall. For a moment he glared at the room with what seemed like a scowl, but his face dissolved back into a semblance of reservation. Then Knuckles saw something that was really bothering him. He couldn't blame him. He knew how close Antoine and Bunnie were. It was as if he and Julie-Su were the mold in which all others were to follow: dedication, self-sacrifice for each other's needs, soul-equals in every sense of the word.

But it was what would come latter down the road of happiness that was more so of a question if that road would be paved for them to traverse. Knuckles could see the question roving in Antoine's head. Could she bear any children, or for that matter, make love thanks to her material deformities? For what he knew he would want further in life was singing behind the outside wall.

Knuckles gripped his fist. To have that much anger built up inside someone else, and that said person could keep it in under lock and key, troubled him why at times he couldn't. Maybe it was just his fortitude? Or maybe he has done it, but he still feels the same after all these years?

"_Julie, I wish you were here to walk me through the question."_ He held his sigh short when a second thought hit him at his heart. _"Aleutian, why did you let your's escape."_

"Blah," he festered, turning back to his training and raised his arms higher to his face. He kept his fist, this time, at an even distance apart from each other. Elbows bent. Stance the same way. It was a high defensive block that he could in the same swipe of limbs, dispatch a lightning blow to his opponent. Lowering himself expertly even further–mostly learned through battles–he gave out a series of blocks before turning them into repeating strikes. His fists moved quickly, perforating the air, letting his boiling imagination picture Kragote in front of him. He so wanted a rematch with him, but his long lost grandfather Talbor saw to it that none would ever come again.

Stepping sideways as if he were in a small box, he dealt another fast right fist towards–

His assault was diverted with a forearm block from Sonic. A mirthful smirk under sly brows seemed to energize the blue furred hedgehog after a moment.

"Can't have you picking on your imaginary friends all the time."

Smiling eagerly, Knuckles said nothing in rebuttal. Instead, he matched Sonic's look and resumed his stance.

* * *

At first Aleutian thought it was all coming back to him. But a missed block and his father's right fist landing dead center at his chest gave him a second thought. Before he knew it he was backpedaling to stay upright. But even in that endeavor he failed. A large oak tree broke his fall, much less his back. He thought at first to get up, but his accidental sitting position had more comfort in it to cause Aleutian to rethink what he was doing wrong than to stand and face his dilemma with quite possibly more pain than correctiveness. And so, he sighed away a twinge from his chest and rested his right arm over his left knee.

"I'm not giving up, dad. I'm just thinking," he said. Locke was still standing but had relaxed his fighting stance. "I know I'm doing something wrong, but I just don't know what."

"_Do_ you_ know?"_ Archimedes asked Locke, localized somewhere above them in the shading trees.

Letting the directed question slide, Locke faltered his pose and expression to match his son's disapproval within himself. He stepped backwards in his mind, placing himself in a different aspect, a different light where he could see if there was a hidden malice in play. Was Lopper still residing in Aleutian's mind with his teachings? Were they inferior to theirs, or was it vice versa?

He concentrated further, letting previous actions become the answers. He reflected the sudden block Aleutian jerked from the back of his mind. Locke could sense it coming. The last few punches they traded afterwards weren't real strikes at all but more to gauge his comfort zone. Apparently the last one was real enough for Aleutian. Now Locke was figuring out where he had missed it. Was it his? _"No, his stance is already poor."_ Was it attitude? _"I can't deny the present feelings of certitude within him."_

"Are you trying to please me, Aleutian?"

His quaking face of surprise was more or less expected. "Come again?"

Locke refreshed his own question in his head again. "Are you trying too hard, is what I'm asking? Are you attempting to prove yourself to me?"

For the moment that lapsed, Locke was speculating whether he was going to regret what he just asked his son. To come to what felt to be close to a journey's end, only to see it be deviated thanks to an ill-thought out earmark question, rippled a tight feeling in his stomach. He hadn't felt it since Knuckles was killed. And before then when Lara-Le denounced her love for him hadn't he felt it. Perhaps the feeling he had when his son came back to life might've replaced it. An immeasurable urge to cry for joy.

The question was dissolving slowly like sugar in cold tea in Aleutian's psyche. A shiver Locke felt in hoping his guess was correct and could dispel it.

"And if I am?" Aleutian asked, Locke grateful his voice was without emotion of any kind.

"I won't be mad if you are. But I won't be pleased either."

"Then what is it that you're asking?" Aleutian returned, still bemused. Still at a loss. "I'm doing my best to remember things. If anyone I'm trying to please, it's me."

Archimedes' voice was like a distant clap of thunder; absent the threat, though present was the residual tremble. "It's not even yourself, lad. You felt a notion of your gut getting kicked in about ten minutes ago...tell us why, lad?"

A stern face engrossed him. He still had a hard time knowing his thoughts weren't safe. "Because..." The younger Guardian shut his blue eyes.

"_It _was_ him after all. It was him who made my son shoot up like a spring!"_

Archimedes grunted a titter. _"Easy, Locke. It's more than just Lopper."_

"Because I didn't get up fast enough," Aleutian voiced confidently, however still remaining stern in tone.

"_You asked the right questions, Locke."_ Archy said to the air. "And where does that lead us next, lad?" he asked in the corporeal world.

Aleutian searched out the ant's voice from above. He felt his courage leave when he swallowed. "Why I needed to get up?"

"To face you're opponent. To take the fight right back to him–am I not correct. Is that what Lopper taught you?"

"Yes," Aleutian reaffirmed, standing to put action to words; "that _thy_ must not give the enemy any notion of an easy defeat." His eyes were now fiercely trained on his father, watching Locke taking it in with affection.

"But we still haven't answered the question, Guardian. Why did you feel what you felt? Why did you raise to block so suddenly from your father's strike?"

"_Memory!"_ Locke chorused charitably.

"_And we let him figure that out, shall we, _Guardian_?"_

But he already did. Or had he? Aleutian's mind had ventured to where it needed to go with the quickness of a gale; back to the pain gnawing at his chest. Holding his stance towards his father, he closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly up, breathing in the rich oxygen his muscles were telling him would dispense the pain, touching him in more places throughout his body to relive his motions with every intake of breath of how he landed on the large tree. He was intent on his father's eyes, he remembered, his own now closed for the blackness to become a canvas to replay his movements, looking for something that he did that betrayed him. He recollected his father's hammer fist, coming down like a scorpions' tail at his head, absent the villainous_ knife_–

His eyes opened abruptly, scared now from what the thought brought back which he swore he'd vanquished to a whole different part of himself, sending it far away from his tender soul. In his moment of fright, panic set in as Locke looked to him with curiosity and concern, no doubt wondering what the cause was for the change in the mood of Aleutian's eyes. Heat washed over Aleutian in the suddenness of what his new fear brought. Different eyes became focused in the forefront of his mind, their brows knitted with anger and pure lust. Chestnut fur that had seemed to have specks of black soil, became the boundary of flesh and irises of those malice eyes. And his teeth, those fangs that were natural to him...Aleutian crushed his hand into a fist tight enough to hold water inside it just on the mere thought of that psychotic grimace.

And the flickering gleam of the blade _he _held close to his chest, ready to jut out and drive at Aleutian's chest–

"_Don't think about him...you're not him! You came close, but you're not HIM! Don't give his soul the pleasure of being remembered!"_

He squinted his eyes, closing the world off in hopes of sealing another. Did it work? Blackness became his sight at long last. A new sheet of paper in his mind to sketch better portraits, better thoughts, conjuring a finer hand in pursuit to lure love and affectionate warmth to oppose the cold he felt was still struggling to survive in his heart.

The lesson from the stream just ten miles ago came to him like the gulp of fresh air when he fought his way to the surface of the ocean on the night he decided to runaway from his family. The bitter chill of both the ocean and the stream crawled their way under his silk fur, but the placid gaze of his father's eyes dispelled the shivers that could have come from the feeling. It was his father's eyes that he opened his own to, just to see if that same warmth, that same calling that said home isn't a mere dwelling or land mass floating in the sky, but standing beside him, talking with him about either trivial or important matters, embracing one another for the sake of feeling safe in one another's company. From the way Locke stood in front of him now, older but still in his wisdom perhaps the same as when he left, as his stance carried the glow of it, Aleutian could see where his defiance had hurt the one who helped in conceiving his very life.

But he could see it was also a two way street. Locke from all this time they've been back together wore his own self-inflicting scares on his fur, and most certainly in his heart. Aleutian could see this time between them was as much of a healing process for his dad as it was for him. He could feel it in his father's very stare that the years weren't really wasted but were misplaced and were coming back to be relived in such a short breath of time.

Emi-La had become his father's gift. Emi-La's dying breath had now become more than just a mere place to revisit and stay. Aleutian had returned home...to his father.

Her_ memory_ saw to it...

Her _memory_ was the key...from that early fall afternoon when he followed the path of her crying voice in the woods, to helping her back to her tribe, to her decision to be with him, and to their night encounter of the _one_ who saved them, and later who'd save them again without his presence, and subsequently many others by what _he_ seeded in them. Aleutian could now only soak in the missing element into his very being. His very soul.

"_Memory is our treasure, Aleutian. Only we can hide it where no others can find it. Only we can open it when its purposes are needed for the sake of our emotions to stay fit for ourselves. If thou can understand this, then thy can know the purpose of the key I'm going to teach thee's body. Emi-La will also know this, but as for thee, I have to ask thee to share thy's treasure with me."_ Aleutian, in the blackness of his vision, felt the same sincerity Lopper expressed in his blue and green eyes, in his firm but soft voice that conveyed the same idea now as it did then. He could still remember himself bowing his head slightly, not for being obedient in Lopper's house of rules and honor, and not being cordial just for the mere though he was _in_ his house...but accepting the apology the lopped eared rabbit was posing. _"It's for the sake that I need to know what thy knows in the pursuit of what habits I need to break, and what new ones I need to teach. Does thee understand?" _Aleutian's voice resonated brighter than what his memory had triggered. "Yes, Lopper," he said aloud to the corporeal world. _"_ _I am honored, my pupil, as thou should be. But I might express my pains once more in order to satisfy a purpose. Thy has memories that are painful...poison. I understand this, Aleutian, but understand me, if thy can: thou may cherish these memories I am seeking to find. In the end I may cause thee to dwell on them. Thou's first instructions from me is _don't_. If thy dwells, then thy is basking in the very poison that can kill a being's heart, but can still walk the world dead from the inside out. And in the end, my pupil...it will kill thee as effectively as our own enemies that _do_ seek our death. _

"_I will teach thee how memory can keep us alive; in the world at large and in our own."_

Aleutian found out the reason much sooner than later why Lopper didn't want Emi-La present with them–Lopper about left him crippled just to test what fighting ability he knew. There, as Lopper left him on the floor of the lop eared rabbit's place of mental sanctuary, his dojo, Aleutian had gone against his first lesson. He dwelled on if his decision to leave home was wrong. He dwelled that if he'd stayed home, he might have won because he would have continued his training with his dad and he would've had the upper hand in the ways of the Guardians. The memory of the agonizing pain from his mouth, to his severely bruised arms, the splints his shins and thighs experienced, to seeing his own blood in a volume he'd never remembered descrying before coming from his lacerated lips. It all made him question his own self beliefs of why he ran away.

But if he hadn't run away, she would have never filled the gap that made his life flourish brighter than the sun and for him, realize that the gap was even there to be discovered. He could still feel the love from her eyes pierce deeply into his. She would show this open, however secret affection to him just before they tested Lopper's new teachings on each other. She learned it from their teacher; asking for forgiveness just before she put her soul-equal in any pain that she'd always regret putting him through.

The same apology always came from him but he could never manage to give it outwardly like the way she could. However it was always there...he never left her.

Again, it was his memory of the cherished things he did for her, because he loved her, that brought him to the here and now. That made him open his eyes to the coming evening, though the sun was still shining on him like a beacon. That made him remember when he saw Knuckles, older, filled with determination and purpose in everything he did; to remembering Commander St. John and his first encounter with him: the touch of the skunks hand on his shoulder, his body seemingly on autopilot, blinking his eyes after finding St. John's arm on the verge of snapping at the elbow.

And like Archimedes had pointed out, his sudden block of his father's fast strike.

"Memory!" he proclaimed, though his voice was soft as the rain. "Muscle memory."

"Which means?" Locke added, bringing out another equation to the full problem.

"I'm dwelling...I'm thinking too much," Aleutian answered solidly, like mortar had finally dried in the scarred crevasses of his heart.

Locke stepped to him with pride reigning from every furtive movement he made to get to him. Aleutian could see that his thoughts had flowed to his father. There was no mistaking it in those deeply atoned eyes of affection and boundless joy. And as he stopped close enough to extend his hand, a smile tugged at his lips with knowing eyes. "Come home, son. Please share your memories with us...and we will share ours."

He breathed deeply, staring intently in his father's calling eyes, matching the same loving, challenging face. "I'm gonna need so help. It's been awhile, dad, and it shows."

"Then take my hand, son. Know that I will guide you the rest of the way."

And he did...and for the life of him, his father twisted around with his hand locked firmly in his grasp, and threw him in the air with the aid of his father's back propelling him like a spring platform.

"Can you remember your rolls?" Locke strained to ask just before Aleutian was becoming one with the gravity.

"_I'm about to find..."_

* * *

"OW!"

Knuckles' right mitt went straight for his left arm just above the elbow. He held it for a moment like it was a baby before he took his mitt away, studying it for blood.

Thankfully there was none, his skin untouched, much less any fur shaved off. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Even if Sonic had managed to slash him, his wounds would have heeled fast enough that only a minuscule drop of violet blood would have soaked the surrounding fur. But it still didn't stave off the accusing stare toward the blue hedgehog.

"Watch it with those things, Sonic!"

It was no secret his quills were razor sharp. Just ask any hunk of slag he's shredded from the beginning when he was aware of his fast art of deconstruction talents. No bot of Robotnick's stood a chance between him and his seemingly natural born ability of speed, spin, and coolness.

His lustful smirk knowingly said so. "Sorry, Knux. Next time I'll remember to swop 'em out for _training_ spines, just–for–you! How's that?"

Knuckles' reply was careful, reposed, but yet quick to his liking:

"Get bent."

"VWould you two, hush," festered Antoine from the wall closest to where the singing was just right outside of. "Eizher fights qvioitly, or don'z fighz at oll!"

Sonic turned to Knuckles as if looking for an ally. "He's just sour because he had to ditch his _sword_."

An assaulting tongue flew his way under crossed arms and closed eyes followed by a,"Hmpf!"

"Ahh, I don't know, Sonic," Knuckles said slyly but in defense, "Antoine does know a few things since your _vacation_ out in space."

"Yeah, like ta search and retrieve a spine!"

Inching closer to one of Sonic's pointed ears, Knuckles let his next phrase come out like someone's whisper that his dear dog had died under the wheels of the short bus–which only Sonic would find degrading, "I've been teaching him a few things."

"_Traitor_," Sonic whispered back in the same seditious voice.

This time, it was Knuckles doing a buddy slap at the back. "Hey, I just can't turn down a gentlewoman like _Bunnie_. She's been asking me, too."

"Oui, and she'z been zeeing me more for who I am," Antoine added proudly.

"That doesn't matter, 'Ant," Knuckles said with a contemptuous voice, never looking at the coyote though. "Julie-Su loves me because I'm me. Bunnie is probably the same way."

"And how's zhaz, Echidna?"

Knuckles could hear the sincerity in Antoine's voice. Really it had now become the same old question that any guy has always wanted to know: what brings the love of their life to them. It was a shot at answering, but he thought it was sound.

"Because we have flaws, Antoine," he answered as if he were some noble prophet, still eyeing Sonic the whole time. "And what Sally _sees in_ all of your's--"

"_Dork_..." Sonic's stare was amusing but threatening all the same, "you're treading on _hollloooww_ ground, lead-foot."

"Oh yea, that's right," returned the Guardian, never missing a mark, as if he never left off from one, "you two are in limbo, or is it..." he leaned into the hedgehog's simmering face, "keeping a knowing distance."

Stepping back from what he thought was the coming explosion of blue cobalt–even in Sonic's red and white sneakers, _he_ would have one himself–Knuckles watched Sonic's abstain brows break from their carefree rise, lower to fuel the fire in his emerald eyes projecting a whole world better to his once, and soon to be reinstated, friendly advisory, tilting his head over his right shoulder as if his neck lost it's muscle strength to hold it still, and pouring his rage out of his ear so he didn't have to use it to magnify his speed and throw a certain red Guardian into the next decade!

"What are you _trying_ to do, _Knuckle-brains_?" Sonic sneered in a voice as plain as the region they were in.

There was nothing of defense in his voice. He just let it go as it came to him; knowing, and diverting, "Getting you all _juiced_ up!"

Sonic held his tantrum stance for what seemed more than a pregnant pause. For more than a passing day. But as suddenly as himself entering into a room, as suddenly as the speed of dark, he straightened himself up, added water to his face it seemed, and all in a split second–like everything seemed to go in his life–he was back to being Sonic; carefree, boisterous...and a downright pain at times.

"Geez, stop trying, Red," he said, in a way, brightly. "Just say Eggman and I'm ready 'ta scoot to the 'bootin!"

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Dear Aurora, help us."

"Well!" exclaimed Sonic, doing a fast two-step bounce and throwing his arms out like a performer, "here I am! Ta-da!"

Knuckles this time laughed. He had to, though it was muffled and disciplined. Sonic was doing what he seemed to be born to do; get people, no matter what despair they seemed to be living in, to laugh, to forget the world around them just long enough to make them happy, and in turn, to give them hope through the strength of humor. Knuckles always had hope no matter what his trails laid before him. But humor...he'd thought he knew, even when Victor and Julie-Su went at it. But again, he was wrong once more in his life when he finally got to know Sonic; after Sally had to sit him down and explain why Sonic was...well, _Sonic_.

And of who he looked thoughtfully to...

"_**Sleep...sleep, little one; we've had our day and loads of fun. Sleep...sleep, little one, tomorrow will come, and we'll have the sun to our own."**_

He tried to push a tear back. He tried to resume his fighting stance: left foot forward, his right pointed away from him and anchored to the rear, fists centered directly at his chest and out. It was all muscle memory.

But the singing–the next verse from the kids just outside boiled up his emotions and singed his heart.

"_**Wake..wake; my good best friend, lets share our time and find everyone..."**_

He blinked, releasing a lone tear from his embattled face. Sonic had one of the same, possibly being birthed from the same purpose. _"No...maybe."_ Knuckles realized that Sonic's childhood was taken away from him because of a tyrant's greed, while his own was cast away because of who he was born to be.

But it still didn't stop the memories. It still didn't stop him from remembering his mother's voice when he was at the age to hear her and claim her as his. He could still remember the sweetness of it. He's never tasted wine, but one never had to for something so tender to be heard. Wine had to be gauged through her. Lara-Le had a voice that if it wasn't for past and present circumstances, she would have moved on to be a singer and not a mother in an occupied land that was her home.

It was her singing that he remembered the most. It was the very song he was hearing that forced his tears from his eyes and harden his face for the impending fight. He was so glad the next verse was coming, glad that one of his best friends was there to hear him sing it before he charged at him so that both fighters could ready themselves to do what their calling has always asked for them...

"**Wake...wake; my good best friend, its time for us to go and..."**

* * *

"**...See our world."**

One second.

Locke stuck first, sending his left fist like a lightning strike at Aleutian's chest.

But up came Aleutian's right arm, and what felt like pure instinct this time, bucking it sideways that caught his father's assault and sending it away from its intended target. But he couldn't spare a fraction of a second to give himself a pat on the back. Almost simultaneously from his block, his own left fist powered out towards his dad.

It wasn't fast enough, Locke swiping it away with his right while regrouping his diverted left and boring his knuckles into Aleutian's right side. His son flinched from the sudden sting, taking him off his guard then exposing enough time and body surface that Locke sent a strong, more deliberate upper-cut to his son's gut.

Besides the wind being kicked out of him, so did his body, flaying back again, but this time landing shy of the large tree that he was knocked back against not so long ago.

Two seconds.

On the bright side; at least his blocks were getting faster.

"I think singing isn't helping you, son," Locke observed, stepping towards Aleutian, who was having a hard time catching his breath. "What brought that song on, anyways. I haven't heard it since–"

Aleutian lifted his eyes up from the ground when his father caught himself. "Since when, dad?" he asked after a lapse of time. At first, he thought he knew the answer.

He was surprisingly wrong, watching his father's face become sullen.

"Since I last heard your mother sing it to your brother."

"Really?" Aleutian said emphatically, relinquishing a meaningful grin. "Does she still sing?"

"You remember?" Locke asked surprised, however, joy of the thought.

Aleutian's smile could warm the coldest of trenches. "How could I not. I still remember that she loved to sing, dad. She'd sing when she cooked, she'd sing when she was reading a book or something...she'd sing to me in the bath, or better yet..." Locke witnessed a sparkle of a faint star glow in his son's eyes. He knew why...nothing was more evident than seeing a father-to-be--and would sadly never become one with the one he loved–ready to return such gifts to his own.

"...She'd sing me to sleep. I remember that the most." He let his blue eyes drift down to the forest floor before coming up to reunite them with his father's. "Is Kneecapoen enjoying her voice?"

Locke felt his throat choke from the wetness of his emotions. Somehow he kept it all to himself. "I should hope so. Maybe she might sing to you again."

Aleutian watched his father's face speak something that he didn't voice; begging him to change the subject to stop the reopening of wounds to a once mended, broken heart.

And so he did out of charity. "I need a box!" he requested dryly, but musing all the while.

Locke could see the gears turning backwards in the clock that was Aleutian's thinking face. Moreover, he witnessed something else that could have been discarded by the mere, average thinking Mobian if it wasn't for his seasoned attention to the tiniest of detail eyes taking hold of his son's change in complexion. Aleutian was playing something in his mind. Perhaps his last, failed, counter-block, or perhaps rolling different motions that he needed to concentrate on due to his request. _"A box?"_ Locke repeated to himself. Aside from an object that looked after one's photographic memories in a forgotten closet, he elder Guardian had to fathom, or in his case, to reach back to the time of _his_ training under Archimedes and his own father to access what Aleutian was asking for.

He didn't have to touch the surface to see the meaning. Turning completely around where he stood, he gauged the clearing under his boots and determined the space was adequate enough. Lifting his right foot up slightly, he jabbed his big toe at the leaves and pierced the edge of his boot through them at the dirt underneath, and with the skill of an apprenticed drafter wielding a large, stubborn pencil, he traced a line in the dirt that was at least a foot and half long, pivoted, then traced another line roughly the same length. What came after two more of the repeated steps was what Aleutian had called for; a box.

"Do you want me in the middle of this?" Locke asked with a straight voice, though, his inner self wanted to express the immense saturation of feelings his body was trying to take in all at once. But he was afraid of doing harm to his son's character if he did.

"No," Aleutian answered after a short span of time, staring evenly at the box his father had drawn. "Just walk me through this."

Locke nodded his affirmation, then watched his son climb to his feet. At first he was expecting Aleutian to begin something, but when he stepped to the edge of the _box_, he looked down upon it as if looking for an instruction sheet to tell him where to begin. For that matter, Locke was trying to place his own self in Aleutian's shoes to remember where to start.

But he didn't have to wait long. Aleutian stepped on the line closest to him facing the north, locked himself down in a less than perfect defensive stance and began throwing a series of blocks, starting with his right fist making a quarter circle from his chest to his nose, then adding another piece of it as he let gravity direct his lower block towards abdomen. These first two moves were simple to the eye, however, Locke knew it was the baby steps that were needed from the start.

"You're over extending yourself," he observed evenly. "Try fitting yourself in a box."

Aleutian held his bent arm out, but stole a quizzical glance to his father. "How so?"

A quick step brought his wandering face over to Aleutian. "What do you want to start with?" he asked, finding his request was, perhaps, the real question that needed to be asked from the start. The next thought that seeped into his mind, he knew full well, would bring a fury from up above. "Would you feel comfortable with revisiting your Ninjutsu?"

Aleutian didn't have time to answer. With his fist still holding the block, it quickly became engulfed with a sudden waft of purple smoke that as fast as it came, dissipated, leaving one indifferent fire-ant in it's wake. Aleutian was about to discover Archimedes had a fierce bark.

"I _FORBID _THIS!"

Locke didn't flinch a hair of emotion, nor did he give the slightest indication that he was going to blink from his former mentor's roar of defiance. He just stood his ground as if he were an effigy of how a simple-minded echidna needed to be seen. He didn't even release a thought to the now stewing air. Inside him, though, he felt a faint spark of disobedience beat in his charging heart. But it was how it felt, faint, not even a candle strength to give a glow to the darkest of rooms. It was the best example to him of how things have changed. No more did he feel himself as the boy Aleutian and Knuckles were to him. No more did he have to listen to a living, breathing conscience to teach him about his duties. Those mistakes were already inflicted on the very person that was in front of him...and he was learning from them as he struggled for closure between the two of them. The notion to bow down to Archimedes and listen to him were out the window that had shattered over decades ago. The gift to do so wasn't of his grey beard, his residual pains of being tortured by the Dingoes that added more callouses to his heart, or of his age that resounded in his very being. No, his gift to send back the same defiant look Archimedes was firing at him like a fatal laser beam, stood in front of him, fostering a dismayed look that could've been construed as a fleeting thought to runaway.

Once a father, always a father. No one could take that pinnacle standing in life away from him. Not even his glowering mentor.

And most of all...before each of his son's had been born, he'd wished he could've made true to his own fostered premonition when it was he who was the Guardian...when it was he who was alone to fend for himself.

To let his son's choose their path of their lives.

"I'm sorry, Arche, but you have no say in this."

Aleutian watched Archimedes, much less felt him, tighten every muscles fiber of his four inch body. "It's not the way of the Guardians...those tactics are only meant to be used as a _last resort_–"

"Then, Arche," Locke said dryly with embedded force, "I implore you to turn around and look at my son."

But the fire-ant never said a word–nor did he put action in the place of them. He just stood in the furrows of Aleutian's tightened fingers, keeping a steady, burning stare at Locke while surmising what was to pass; what his former pupil was venturing to do.

Not pleased with his inactions, Locke voiced himself in his mind that only Archimedes would hear, lest he had his son hear his growl: _"I said turn and LOOK at him!"_

Aleutian, however, was very attuned to the bitter faces he was seeing leap across the three foot void. "Dad?" he stammered with feeling coming from his voice, his eyes albeit casting a frightened aura of unsettlement in his sea blue hues.

His father strayed a disarming gaze to him, but couldn't quite wrap his voice around the notion. "Please, be silent, Aleutian."

And there Locke waited for Archimedes to _now_ do what _he_ was told.

And the fire-ant did, slowly but surely, he pivoted around the middle finger of Aleutian's encrusted hand and brought his eyes up to the lad's...and waited.

"My son..." Locke's swelling throat cut him off from the question he was inflicting upon himself to ask. Never mind it was previously put forth to his son two days before by Ian St. John's son, Geoffrey, but he had to plunge the knife into both of their souls to ask again...to take the lives of their feelings, and the road they have traveled for so far and in such a short span of time, and risk all the accomplishments of bonding with one another just for the sake of the forsaken. For those whom were being murdered as they stared down one another. "...how many people have you killed, my son?"

What happened next, all the movements that took place, happened just as fast as his heart turned a beat, like a page, in a book of utter sorrow. Archy's sudden turn in shock. Aleutian's weaken legs driving him to step back, like the question had sailed at him like a blunt object.

"Dad!" he quivered in protest, taking an added step backwards and relaxing the tension in his hand. His mouth trembled as his next words seem to fall with it. "Why ask me _that_?"

Locke took in a lung full of air, listened to his head and released it through his nostrils, and took in another, releasing it as a pleading whisper, "Please, answer me."

"What's the point in this," voiced Archimedes in the harsh tone that Locke surely thought Aleutian would use.

"Not a point, dear friend, but a stance," returned the elder echidna in a reposed, but bloodless voice.

It was Aleutian's cry, however, that seemed to silence the world.

"Don't ask me this." Locke darted his eyes to see his son's glistening in the light of the faltering day. "Why do you want to know?"

Locke let his brows convey his sincerity. "It's not me now who needs to know, Aleutian, but Archimedes."

"And why, mate?" came the fire-ant's vivid response.

But Locke never let the answer slip from his lips. Instead, he crossed his arms around his chest and let his hands find shade inside the excess, sagging fabric of his sleeves, his eyes repeating the question to Aleutian.

A long moment passed with the slight breeze that curved its way through the open spaces of the surrounding trees. It was long enough for Aleutian to remember his previous answer.

"I've never counted, nor will I start to. I did what was asked of me, and I did what was needed to be done. Like I told Geoffrey the other day, father–it's what separates us from the others."

"_And please tell me those three are now a forgotten memory,"_ Locke prayed in his head, and silent from Archimedes. "Was it of last resort, son? Did you have to take lives because there was no other alternative?"

Aleutian's answer was quick and to the point, in hopes to chase another. "Yes!"

"_It doesn't matter, Locke,"_ Archy protested through the air. _"He is with us, and he needs to change his ways to the scruples _your_ family has lived by for countless generations."_

"It ends with him, mentor," Locke decried in a cold voice. "It ends with both of my sons."

The silence that followed could have been killed by a drop of a molecule of water.

"From what I see, Archy, we have come to the last resort. My son is trying to find his way back and is struggling to do so, my people are being slaughtered with me feeling helpless to do anything, and much worse, your people are suffering as well." Locke bit down on his rage as he took a breath. "And you mean to tell me that the tools we have at our disposal disavows all we stood for, even when we, as ourselves, are being murdered?"

"But it's a dark art, Locke..."

"And our enemy isn't a ray of sunshine, either," Aleutian put forth, his midrange baritone voice being flexed to its fullest degree.

"We have other alternatives, Aleutian," hissed the fire-ant, turning completely around to address the young Guardian. "You don't have to _snuff_ people out in their sleep to achieve victory, lad. We can teach you these alternatives. Your kind has shown they can learn a great many things in the shortest span of time."

Aleutian's eyes honed a vast belief in himself at his father's mentor. "But it comes with experience of things we do know, Archimedes."

Locke stepped forward to his son with affirming eyes. "Precisely, my son."

Caught between the two, Archimedes alined his shoulders, like putting a wedge against the sandwich of the two Guardians who were pressing on him. "I still don't approve," he murmured softly, cautiously so his words wouldn't get repealed and inflict serious harm in return. As soon as he felt safe–Locke's voice came at him like a dull dagger.

"And I could care less. Our people need us, and if he has to retouch a few old ways so he can learn ours–then so be it, _Mentor_."

"Why can't I use the Ninjutsu to begin with?" Aleutian shot in, frowning a scowling look at the still fire-ant standing on his fist.

"It's not for you to judge, but do," Archimedes replied, doing his best to recover from Locke's assaulting words.

"Archy." The fire-ant turned to face the drawn eyes of his former pupil. "The time for that principle has died with the thousands we've failed. My patience to stay true to who we are has fallen by the wayside to stop the travesty that should've been stopped a long time ago. If we need to resort to unscrupulous acts to stop those who lack 'em, then I'm all for it. We use what we have, and then we can foster what we need to achieve." Locke lifted his gaze to his son, letting his disdain dissolve to caring. "Do you believe in this, Aleutian?"

He didn't let a moment slip by, matching his father's expression, "I've always have."

"Then it's settled," came Locke's charged, bass voice, returning his instilled eyes to Archimedes, and who he saw was about to make his final objection. He wouldn't let it spill into the air. "And if you can't bear this, and try to come between me and my sons, in anyway from what I want for _them_–" his eyes narrowed, bracing himself for what could be the spark of a third war he quite possibly could never win, "–then you will no longer be the guiding ear to each of my sons, and if so be it, their own children."

He stood stiff but inward, he was beside himself in a void of emptiness, his mind approaching a total lapse of all logic as he tried with great effort to recollect himself. Why Aleutian felt this way was beyond him; watching his very father tell the one being who has trained and guided him, his father before him, and his sons after him tell, him he had no future in their upbringing because of a fear that had already existed. That had already come true, but not in the dark-light his own kind had feared would come. Instead, how Locke saw his son, the nightmare was a lesson in balance...a lesson who stood before them looking for a way back to the better light he had caused to bloom with his actions. Aleutian knew of the harrowing vision the fire-ants had feared with such training. He had seen it. He had _done_ it. But the difference between staying in the light, or succumbing to the darkness was ultimately the real test in all of life. Character. Character, and how to hold on to it when Life delivers the worst blows to one's own soul. He could've stayed in the shadows of his despair, himself on the brink of becoming the one thing his friends would have hunted for. But there had been an unforeseeable aid–like a hidden note to cheat the test–that Life had all but forgotten but seemed to allow. A little girl to stroke his heartstrings. A little girl he was afraid for in the split second it took him to relax his finger off the trigger that would have made him the very demon that would take her father away from her. A father Aleutian was deprived of becoming.

If misery loves company, then compassion must thrive for loneliness. That was how he saw his seclusion for the over two years. He had compassion for others because he didn't want to spread his misery on them. With what friends he has left, luckily misery wasn't contagious.

But today, of all days, he was gladly giving the company to a certain fire-ant who was much like him; beside himself in bewilderment. Archimedes was just like him in the pose of solid stone, only Aleutian's drifting hand giving animation to his instillment. He could feel Aleutian's warming sympathy touch him, thawing his muscles and relaxing his eyes and tensioned mouth beyond his clipping jaws to help send the only thought he could conceive to his once pupil...and hopefully, now still, friend.

"_I'm sorry, Locke,"_ he said in the faintest of whispers in his head. _"In my quest to lead by example, I was standing by my duties...and not by my friends and allies."_

As his words touched Locke's part of the brain that echoed them into sound, another part of him told him to smile with guilt that he had to do so much harm to the people he cared for just to set a tone of reason and renewed principles. _"I know, Archy...tis why_ _I had to be so forceful. Life comes over duty...and duty comes over life. It was something you taught me."_

A renewed surge boiled through his tiny veins, twisting the fire-ant around to address his now affirming eyes to someone he had failed so long ago. "Is all still forgiven, Aleutian? Is all forgiven that I held my voice because of my bond to duty and principle?"

With welling eyes, Aleutian let a single nod convey his absolution to the _one_ who was the soul reason why he was still alive to give it. "It always has," he said with his glistening voice.

Under an emotional, cringing face–one that neither Guardian had seen–Archimedes returned the nod. "Very well." Then he turned his attention to the box.

"Don't look at it as what it is," he explained, his voice struggling to come back to one of a teacher. "Think of it as a diamond. Can you see it?"

"I do," Aleutian affirmed solidly, finidng his eyes dotting at the corners, feeling a lost memory reoccurring to him as he did.

"Good, then put yourself on a point. Locke?" The elder echidna looked on to the fire-ant, "start with his blocks, then his strikes, then his kicks...then back again."

A shallow nod, his face molding into that of a fighter...yes, his son needed to retouch that visage as well.

"Very well..."

* * *

"_Goodnight, he's getting–"_

The reason why Sonic couldn't complete his thought was due to a driving fist he hadn't felt since he went seeking sanctuary on the Floating Island with Ducy, and finding it was a bad idea when Knuckles came out fighting. Or for that matter, when they had duked it out in their super forms.

He swore he felt his spit eject from his crushed lips when the echidna's fist smashed dead-center between his upper and lower jaw. He literally swore when he couldn't keep his balance from the sudden throbbing pain and change in inertia that sent him to the dusty floor, the puff of air he spent from his lungs sent a good hand throw of the discarded particles in the space between the floor and the rafters.

Face down he laid, contemplating how much more time he would let Knuckles savor this one shot victory before rolling over to spring up and give his _coup de grace _surprise of revenge. He didn't have to when he heard the echidna's tittering voice over him.

"Hey Sonic, you're not gonna take _that_, are ya'?"

He rolled over and let his emerald eyes dictate his answer to a pair of gloating, purple hues, feeling a smirk overtake his face. He had the line to say. It was so close to the tip of his tongue. To bad it had died stillborn when a clarinet voice chirped over his thoughts.

"Mio, zhinkz hiz taking it lying down, Knuckles."

The Guardian tried his best not to expel all the air in his lungs to laugh when Sonic patiently, eyes wide in fury, rolled his head over to Antoine, who was still leaning against the wall, one pupil looking through the minuscule space between two boards, the other winking victory with his smug face. "_Chuckles_," came Sonic's harping, however low voice–mostly for the situation, the other for dramatics. He didn't have to stray an eye an incredible distance to see Knuckles' expression fall to one of total disdain. "You're nothing but a three foot-seven, bad example." And like the lightning he was known to duplicate just for mere amusement, he throttled his right leg to Knuckles' left, and swiped the echidna off his feet.

It was a gracious thing the children were still singing a full line of _la-la-la's_, for their sweet voices covered the Guardian's gasp of surprise. The strike was forcefully enough to make him tilt over to the direction of gravity, giving his right hand the slightest angle it needed to shoot for the wooden floor. Flexing every molecule of muscle fiber, and adding the chaos energies that spread so abundantly through his body and blood since birth, Knuckles propelled himself further over into a one-handed cartwheel, pushed himself up when his feet, body, and eyes were aligned with the straightness of his arm, and flew a short distance to the row of benches beside him.

His feet tattered the decaying wood when they landed with his full weight. With an even spread to his stance, Knuckles lifted his arms up, mittens into fists, and narrowed his whole face it seemed to Sonic. "Nice try, _Swine_."

Shrugging the barb off with a snuff, Sonic climbed to his feet the only way he does things, fast, and stood directly in front of Knuckles. "Either you're getting faster, or I'm getting slower."

A brow-full of enlightenment brightened the echidna's already extremely mirthful face. "Try both and you might get somewhere, for once."

Sonic bobbled his head with an under-bite of chatter, "_Maybe you might get somewhere–maybe you might get somewhere_." Then he let a snook, minus his hand-placement to his nose to complete it, fly off to the unmoved echidna.

A harsher sigh filled the already boiling schoolhouse. It came from a certain coyote across the way. "When weez getz back, I'm filing moi requezt to Zally zhatz I never work with you two _a'gain_."

Sonic helped a mischievous look along. "Geez, _Ant_. Why all the saber rattling?"

"Maybe cause we told him to ditch the real one," Knuckles chimed in under a fierce smile. The return look from Antoine was more than scathing, but with a degree of absolute malice that trickled a small notion of guilt through Knuckles' bloodstream that said he should have shut his mouth and let Sonic take the full credit. But it was small, never hampering his mocking countenance.

And here he let his eyes seek out Sonic's, sparking a hard, snickering gigged laugh between them when their two expressions met.

Seriousness finally came back into the fray. The laughter was replaced by their silence...by the children's singing on the other side. The song had changed, nothing upbeat, nor should there be, but a gentle night song. That period wouldn't approach for at least another five or so hours, however, Knuckles let the current strafe of events call his eyes to Sonic, tracing a box around him. The tips of the hedgehog's red and white shoes were like the compass points to a northen-border. But where Knuckles' concerns lye were the points that turned the box into a diamond. Those were his marks that he needed to be on, changing his fight from a straight-on endeavor to a ballet of angles that was designed to throw off his opponent and denied them the comfort zone to deliver full-force punches and strikes. It delayed their reaction time and had them cross their bodies to make swings, thus making them partial sitting ducks. But in all reality, the fastest swine alive with spines would be out of the box that was, in his case, constructed more like glass to throw the whole concept out the window, with him as well.

Nevertheless, it was a good starting point.

Knuckles leaped off the bench and landed flat footed close to Sonic's left side. At the same time, he sent his right mitt hurdling towards the hedgehog's head.

* * *

Aleutian blocked his father's incoming fist faster than he could realize his forearm had connected to it. A moment was not spared, not even the twinge feeling of Locke's protruding knuckles striking his muscle diverted him, when he swung his free fist into an uppercut that landed somewhere between his father's rib cage and abdomen. He felt his assailing blow push in the soft, meaty portion of his dad's stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and his body backwards.

Through it all, Locke wondered how he kept his balance, skirting away some but keeping his eyes glued to his son. "Better," he said, working hard to catch his breath, however smiling. "It's working for you."

And it was; not of it being a standard technique, but rather that the box was starting to excavate past skills while the fracas continued on. No more did Aleutian seem to possess uncertainty within himself of what he was trying to reacquire, or of the idea to please Locke. He was becoming sure of himself, letting his brain rely on his reaction and sharpening it in the same fold. And thus, so were his maneuvers. It was the most evident thing throughout most of the day where Locke didn't have to scratch the surface so harshly to see.

But there was one thing that still wasn't coming out, and he needed to show this to Aleutian.

He hopped straight on at his son, sending a zipping fist towards his birthright. Even with picking out Aleutian's thoughts, his son's counter still came as a surprise. Possibly it was the pain when the younger Guardian pounced just to the left, grabbing his father's assailing fist in mid-flight with his left hand, backing the maneuver with his right by grabbing the thumb from the top, rolled the now halted fist over, extending his dad's arm straight at the elbow and nudging off balance enough to set up the next shot.

Locke didn't have to pick out Aleutian's thoughts to see what was coming; he already saw his son's left hand release his overturned fist while decrying bared teeth. His reaction was about as lightning as his son's barreling elbow, the protruding bone like a dull spear aiming at his throat, his free hand thrusting up, catching Aleutian's strike. Letting the movement become the weighted pendulum, Locke griped the now betraying limb that pushed him backwards, returning him to his stronger stance, slide out from underneath Aleutian's range and conquered strike, tightened his right forearm, and lightly smashed his left first straight into his intended target.

He let Aleutian fall, watching him attempt to roll out of it, but through it all, he settled to the leafy ground instead.

Aleutian seized his white crest with his hand, like trying to force the pain back into him. The protruding knuckles Locke had dug into him still resonated their presence when the blow was long gone. His eyes drifted up as far as they could go while keeping his head low to breathe away the throbbing ache.

"Our enemies have changed, son," Locke said, almost like he was trying to reiterate something. "There are more steel skinned opponents than soft skin and fur."

"I know," Aleutian struggled to say, more out of misunderstanding than the continuing pain.

Locke shook his head. "I'm afraid you don't. That pain you feel, if I'd gone all the way, you would have been bleeding, much less suffering a few broken bones." He pumped a clutched hand straight out to Aleutian, delivering his next point with it. "These are our weapons," he explained forcefully, stroking a finger over the twin spikes at the end of his fist. "There is a green hedgehog running around this world by the name of Scourge. He has two long scars running down his chest under his black leather jacket." Locke saw right off this got Aleutian's attention. "You're loving father put them there with these."

Aleutian took his hand away from his chest and examined it. A new light seemed to shine on his mother's gifts. He felt around the protruding knuckles, this time, however, touching them with a different feeling expunging from his body. "Okay?..."

Locke could feel it within his son: a form of realization, but on the same token, lost.

"Stand-up, boy" he instructed softly.

Aleutian got to his feet, Locke meeting him with his hands taking both of his son's. He crushed the fingers into fists. Then, he pushed the knuckles of Aleutian's fingers down, dragging the spikes forward in a scraping motion. "This is where you need to come away from the Ninjutsu and focus on something you might find belittling."

"What's that?" Aleutian asked, studying his father's hands teaching his own.

"The art of brawling."

Aleutian drifted a sincere smile to his father. "Shouldn't Knuckles be teaching me that instead of you?"

"Yeah, but he isn't here," chuckled Locke before turning Aleutian around with a guiding arm across his shoulder.

He lead him to the same tree his back had met, it seemed, countless times in the course of the current lessons. "Remember how you punched the face of the mountain yesterday to climb up it?" he asked under quizzical eyes. Aleutian only nodded, taking a longing bead at the bark. "It's the same principle, but you want to follow through in your strike."

"Hit-and-stick," Aleutian commented dryly; the stabbing wound from the SWATbot armor that albeit was gone–thanks to Doctor Quack–still ruptured under his skin and fur when the thought of his hammer fist at the marble counter top shot the pieces back to his ravaged life and made the old wounds worse.

"Correct, but you need to add another phrase to that thought: drive-and-scrape."

Locke centered himself in front of the tree and sped his fist towards it, driving his twin spiked knuckles deep into the bark while following through with a down stroke that tore through the flank of the tree. Chips of bark and wood speckled the ground with Aleutian taking in all of it. Stepping back, Locke looked to Aleutian and said, "Hit–stick–drive–and–scrape."

"Don't count out strength, dad."

A raised, waving finger–actually two from his three fingered gloves. "Not so." Again, he took Aleutian's right fist as his teaching tool. "I know I, and quite possibly Lopper, had taught you to strike with the flatness of your fingers. Right?" Aleutian nodded, Locke running his thumb over the top of his fingers. "This is where it changes. Your knuckles are now the placement of your strike. Don't worry about breaking your hand, because our _weapons_ will take the full brunt of it, and _our_ hands, as we're from the Bloodline of Edmund, are strengthen as we are born and matured. We can take a lot compared to some of the average Mobians, or even _humans_."

Aleutian noted the slight distaste in his father's voice, but choose to ignore the subject matter. In fact, it hurt _him_ just from the impression he felt come from his father. "And our strength?" he asked coyly. Locke looked on at him for a moment, inserting his eyes as an insisting drive to bring out more of the meaning of the question. Aleutian didn't like the feeling and almost abandoned the whole thought all together. But things were changing...and they have always needed to be changed. "I started to become aware of my hidden strength when I turned seventeen." His head sagged some, Locke looking on somberly. "I couldn't explain it, dad. I was lifting things that three days earlier I was struggling to drag across the ground. You know those bookshelves?" Locke nodded under an increasing smile. "They were along both walls of our basement when Lopper gave us the place. Emi-La wanted me to tighty the house up and I needed a workbench..."

A hard swallow showed Locke the past was starting to take their toll on his son. The drifting off of his voice was evidence to that equation. "You don't have to go on, son. I know what you're getting at."

Aleutian shook his head, his eyes reading the ground. Like he was ready his memories from it. "I thought me and Emi-La were going to have to take all those flippin books off the shelves, move them, then reorganize everything," he continued, his voice welling in wetness, but his eyes conveying a smile that soon infected his lips. "A day later I figured for craps-and-giggles I'd give it another try." Aleutian held his breath for a second, his eyes suddenly widening. "I moved them all to where I wanted them–where I thought they were best–when Emi-La came down to grab me for dinner that she made for me to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?" Locke asked warmly.

"Oh," Aleutian stammered, "our anniversary of us in the house and the hard work we put into it. I had yet to make the power-ring generator to replace the small nuclear power unit that kept us up all night.

"But you know what she said to me, _dad_?" Locke felt flattered from Aleutian's smile; the pain within him about her was starting to heal. Memories held that kind of elixir. "'Aleutian, can you move them in rows and not stacks,' she said to me. I just gawked at her, dad. It was all I could do."

A moment passed with a squinched smile ebbing at Locke's lips. "What did you do after dinner."

It was like he had no choice in the matter and had accepted it. That was what his tone reflected:

"Oh, I moved them. But dad!...my arms, my upper-body; nothing changed in muscle tone. When I trained I would–noticeable–but the power that I had didn't reflect what my body was showing I was capable of." Then he squinted his eyes in curiosity. "Come to think of it, Knuckles looks the same way I had at one time."

With this notion Aleutian scoured his body with his emotionless eyes. "What would Emi-La say about me now? What would she say about all this?" he seemed to mutter under his breath. And for awhile he stood there, his muscles and visage slowing encrusting themselves in a stone of dwelling.

When Locke stepped closer to him, the mortar had somewhat hardened. "Son?" he spoke softly.

It didn't break his fossilized eyes, slowly bleeding out tears.

"I want her back, dad," he cried in a whisper, his stare hardening for the worst of him.

"And she wants you," Locke pressed home, rubbing Aleutian's face, tracing the long scare with his thumb. "What I saw in your dream was that she wants you back."

"I know, dad." A tear traced the other side of his face. "And she does...and so do you.

"But I still want--"

"Don't dwell, Aleutian," Locke said gently, taking a hand at Aleutian's shoulder. "C'mon,."

Turning him around, he urged him towards the tree under a caring push. "Strike the tree," he said, "strong hand first."

"What did the tree ever do to me?" Aleutian begged.

Locke was taken aback with the comment, holding in a scolding comment, deciding it best that he think it over. Shacking his head, he placed his hand at his son's back and guided his other at the tree. "Think of it as what it is going to do for you. Now STRIKE!"

On command, Aleutian shot his right fist at the tree, landing his knuckles the first time on the bark...but forgetting to scrape.

Locke walked around to the other side of him. "Do you know what you did wrong?"

"I didn't scrape."

"And you didn't keep your other arm up for defense. Do these as if you were engaged in a fight."

Aleutian didn't have to level his left arm, Locke doing it for him, but placing it in a different stance, a different style: leveled at his throat, his elbow cocked down, his fingers balled in resolve. He punched again, driving his hand dead on at the tree, thrusting the spikes down into the tree before recoiling it back.

"Better! Again!"

And he did, firing it out and back, hitting the tree and holding the strike not even a half a second, but long enough that if it were a living, breathing person made of flesh and bone, they would just as likely tumble.

Another punch, another dig into the park. Pieces of the tree started falling to the ground as he continued. Grunts soon dispersed from his mouth.

"Now jab with your left and strike harder with your right. Make blocks out of the left when you bring it back."

And so Aleutian did. It started slow, a left punch, drawing it back to work on technique rather than speed, bringing it closer to his face, sending his right fist out as a follow up. After three sets of this he progressed in speed; his arms flowing better like a whipping wind.

"Okay, double tap with your jab and deliver your right punch as a hook."

His father's voice was feeding him now, almost joining him in the hollow anger they both had for this nonthreatening tree. He worked the jabs, placing them in different parts of the tree's bark before throwing his right arm around and shooting his fist at the flanks, making sure he pulled his hand back, taking some bark with him. It was a rib-cage shot. And if it felt anything of pain, Aleutian was sure that his opponent would have been balling over from it.

The more he progressed, Locke instructing him, and in some cases showing him a different way to block and strike, Aleutian could see more and more of the yellow fibers that made up the tree. He stopped for an instant to caress his now aching hands. His gloves were sticky, the amber color of sap staining the heavy, white fabric.

"Does it hurt?" Locke observed.

"Yeah..."

"Imagine if you didn't have them on. They are heavy for a reason. You enemy will still feel the full force of your anger, but the layers of cushioning that were put into the gloves protect our hands from scrapes and, Aurora forbid, breaking our fingers."

"_Really could have used these when I killed that SWATbot that took my lock."_

"I'm not going to address that, son," Locke frowned. "Now, keep striking. Much faster this time!"

* * *

What was a period of burning time in the already stifling schoolhouse and of warming ligaments and muscles had now become a full fledged fight. Antoine watched on, unmoved, and quite honestly to his own soul, irritated that at such a time like it was, an old rivalry of ego had become rekindled. He should be laughing. But no, the kids outside singing held him to his silence. He should've by now put things to a stop, not looking through the tops of his eyes, his snout to the floor, arms tightly crossed over his chest. But no. The last deck he saw came from Sonic, smashing Knuckles' muzzle to the other end of next year, crashing him to the floor.

It was a wonder he didn't make a thud when he rolled on his chest.

"Good one, Blue," Knuckles gingerly remarked over his working lungs. He pushed down on the floor with his hands, arching his back to squeeze out the nitrogen bubbles in his spine.

"Hey, at least you're getting the workout. Not enough room for me here to shake out all my coming _pains_."

Knuckles brought his head around to see Sonic's mocking sneer. Knowing him it was a meaningful smile. "Oh, c'mon. A sap like you to take a walk around the track to get stretched out?"

"If Echidna's can have trade secret's–why can't I?" Sonic jeered, just a little too proud of himself.

On this, Knuckles climbed back to his green, tan and yellow shoes. "Give me a break, Sonic!"

The hedgehog never broke from his snide posture. Neither did his face. "Arm or leg."

Knuckles had to smirk, stiffening his left leg on the wooden floor as he readied every muscle fiber in his torso to spin on his command. "If you can catch it!" he tittered before launching his right shoe at Sonic's rib-cage.

Here it was that the blue hedgehog's face finally changed into one of expecting great pain.

* * *

Aleutian rolled what seemed like forever, but in reality, it was two turns from the time his right arm hit the leafy forest floor, to the time he stopped dead on his back. The blue sky for a split second vanished into an array of colors that he would have felt spellbound in their splendor of textures if the pain racking at the walls of his ribs weren't causing them to leap at his eyes. The aches were like pinpoints of cities on a map. Six in all, his hand wrapping around their collective spots where the heavy bolt-laces of his father's boots had marked them. His back didn't fair far better. His father's toes still managed to find their marks as well.

"W-what was..._that_!?" he coarsely breathed. He was still looking to the sky for answers while trying to hold the pain in.

"That was a kick you did not see coming," Locke said under a deep tone. He stepped over his son, casting a long shadow over a longer face.

"Yea, one that about broke my ribs all over again!"

Locke stood quiet, drawing his eyes on his son. Aleutian didn't move either, only moaning from the pain he couldn't get over.

"Come on," Locke said after a moment, reaching his hand down. "I know it hurts."

"Don't, dad," retorted Aleutian, receiving his father's offered hand and picking himself off the ground. For the seconds he had his feet feeling the ground, he wobbled timidly, almost numb to his surroundings just before he started walking, his hands clutched at his left side. Walking away.

"Don't give up, Aleutian," Locke calmly said.

"I'm not," came Aleutians subtle response. "I'm trying to walk this off." A pace or two later he stopped and said over his shoulder:

"How did you deliver that, dad?"

Locke let his stride show determination as he walked to his son. When he approached, he kneeled down to Aleutian's shoes and placed his hand over the tops. "It's not the delivery but the placement. Our laces do more than just hold are shoes tightly to our feet." He saw Aleutian's eyes become wide in understanding, though he was still forcing down air. "Come here, I'll show you."

Following his father back to the small clearing and back to the same, however, now brutally chipped away tree, Aleutian watched him snap his right leg out with a hard pivot and collided the top of his boot to the side of the tree. His ankles where his metal laces were also impacted it, leaving six noticeable impression in the bark when his foot came back down. And just for good measure, Locke did it once more for Aleutian.

"Can you still kick?" Locke asked after turning around. Like the question ever hit Aleutian's mind from the word go, much less anything else he was taking from his father.

"Geez, let me think on that, dad," he grunted, eyeing the tree for where he hoped he could land his foot. Anchoring his left foot, he pivoted his torso around in the hardest slingshot he could manage and propelled his right foot in the air. Something in his thigh tightened. Like a soaked rope it felt, halting the elevation of his leg to lower than he really wished to go, smashing the tree hardly half his height with not the top of his foot, but straining with his toes.

"Nope, that's not going to work, son," said Locke under a half mirthful, half foreboding voice. When Aleutian turned, his face about dissolved all of that work on his.

"You're telling me, _pop_. That junk hurts...second thought, what doesn't?"

No matter how much glower Aleutian had on his expression, no matter how much there was between them both, it was on a slight of hand to make them smile at each other in the end. There was some sincerity in it that made Locke fall back to something they both needed. "Time we give it up."

Aleutian shook his head, his visage changing like a cloud floating over the sun. "I'm not ready to quit."

"We're not, Aleutian," Locke offered. "Think of it as...as a time to reflect how far we need to go tomorrow. We learned the way of the path, now we need to find our way to conquer it without suffering tiredness."

"And when defeat is necessary?" Aleutian added, bowing his head with it.

Locke wavered his eyes, much less his truer smile. "For it will make us stronger to turn down the next."

Aleutian felt something echo in his father's stare at him. Something he now realized he had wished to have felt a long time ago. He couldn't describe it, nor did he want to. To add science to the meaning would kill it, not understanding instead was the comfort he felt with it, hoping he never would for the rest of his days. He closed his eyes to the vacancy of his mind at last. Defeat...the hardest lesson for him to accept, and yet, the easiest choice he has faced. When one has tasted victory for so long that he has forgotten about what it felt to lose, the price, the bitter taste of it was more than a crushing blow, it was a period of losing one's self.

The way he did.

"Okay," he said, softly from his heart. "We give up for today." Tensing his shoulders, he stood up straighter, leveling a sincere look of confidence at his father. "What about tomorrow?"

Locke let a sigh purge from his lips. "Tomorrow brings on my worries. I need to get back to Angel Island. Who knows what Kommissar has done since I've been away, much less what I need to undo. But I can happily stay with you for tomorrow, and the next day if so be it." An affirming nod sealed the deal from Aleutian. "Then it is settled. Now, my question for you Aleutian is: can you still build a fire at the same rate as yesterday?"

Aleutian's smile was eager. "You bet."

"Very well," Locke returned, "let us journey a few more steps, perhaps a better clearing for the stars. By then we might be just a bit more hungry to chase away our soreness."

Nodding once more, the younger Guardian turned to the northwest and gazed at the coming twilight on the horizon. "This way will be fine...it always has."

* * *

Knuckles came around, his tight left fist bearing for the head of Sonic. But he stopped dead from his half moon circle in the dust. Sonic had done so as well, saving the echidna from a bawling blow to the kidneys with a knife hand. It was now a standoff with narrowed eyes. Breaths were exchanged. But still they did not engage each other.

The singing had stopped.

But they could hear knocks from the outside, shuffling of feet on the dirt ground, small, tiny voices coming through the cracks:

"Thank-you...oh, thank you so much..."

Sonic brought his hand up and cupped it inside Knuckles' mitt, squeezing it hard under his determined green eyes. The echidna only smiled with glee.

"Ready to make that phone call, Rad?"

"Let's hope they accept collect," Knuckles returned with a emotionless drive in is tone.

A lasting nod with a face full of mirth. "Hey, Ant...fire-up ole binary-curves there, and put the mondo speed to it. Let's get some friends to shake up this place!"

* * *

He could go to sleep with the gentle rocking. But it was so hard not to for Ell-Tee. Was it the cold floor? The impatient pacing of Vickers? Or was it even duty? To fall asleep on watch was the worst dereliction a soldier could commit. To sleep meant that no one was protected from an intruder, an ambush, or even from themselves. He knew that all too well. Once he caught a watchmen chasing a dream. He found him slumped on his rifle, body in place and arms tucked under him to keep warm from the frigid night air. What a picturesque sight he found. A camera could have kept that symbol of pushing on for the fight. That one photo that a mother could weep over and call up courage with to keep the fight going on the home-front. It was just a shame that the home-front was the main front.

It was a shame that Ell-Tee had to make the poor trouper an everlasting symbol to everyone else. It was a shame orders had to see the poor boy die.

"I have a request, Ell-Tee," chimed Petty Officer Trent, happily breaking the Legionnaires' train of thought.

Ell-Tee rose his head, his locks uncoiling from the floor some as he leaned his back further on the bulkhead. "Make it quick."

"We get chairs for the crew on the bridge, sir. Unlike you muscle inclined Echidnian, my feet and back start bringing on the pain after about, oh, six hours of standing."

"Noted," Ell-Tee said dryly. "You know that means Field Marshal Stenson gets first dibbs of what we can find? You also know that means a mission for me to go out and _hunt_ for it too, right?"

Trent Shrugged. "Yeah, so?"

Looking at his robotic hand, Ell-Tee let a smirk slide across his face to the other side of the bridge were Trent was standing, peeking over the small console that hid him. "Tell me, Petty Officer...ever held a rifle before?"

"Wait a nautical minute here," chirped Trent.

"Hey, if you want a chair to rest your tail, you have to go get it."

"But I'm not up to your kind of combat," came the brown furred echidna in the peacoat.

Vickers' voice was more on the lines of a snicker. "Guess who's gonna stand for the rest of his life."

The frown Trent laced the room with was the end all of the request he offered. Ell-Tee rolled his head as he smiled, stretching his neck with an invisible strain only he would know about. "Did you have fun Vickers?" he asked after a short time. The wind had kicked up some, blowing fresh salty air inside the bridge through the open hatch-door.

"If you call what we did on Albion work, than yeah, sure," replied the Corporal in earnest. "I just can't imagine living there, though."

"Oh?" came El-Tee rather hastily.

Finding a spot on the back of his head, Vickers cringed his face in thought. "I–I don't like the idea of living in a place where I can't be apart of something that can save my own skin or even others."

"Others?" huffed Trent as he glided over to the radar station. "Since when did you start caring about others?"

"Since he's been saving his own kind, Petty Officer," said Ell-Tee from what seemed like afar. "He's always cared. I've always cared."

"But we aren't your people, Lieutenant," said Trent balefully. "For that matter, I can't associate your people with mine."

The words hurt him, his face showed at least that much. "Petty Officer, do we not have dreads, such as you?" Ell-Tee asked, his voice surprisingly disarming.

"If they're not replaced, then yes."

"Okay," waved on Ell-Tee, "then do we have fur? Do we have tails? Do we feel?"

A slight frown, like he ate something grotesque. "All in retrospect, Ell-Tee."

"And how do you come up with that?" Ell-Tee festered, tilting his head, mostly to see Trent by the other echidna crewman, who was now watching them and not his station. For that matter most eyes were on them.

"Simple, it's how our outlooks on life are different. You people see that technology can greatly improve our lives, but how we see you and your pursuit shows us torment, torture. Shoot, down right misery. For us, we share the world as how we see it, sir."

"But excuse me, Mr. Hypocrite, but how does a T.V., lightning fast cars, and plasma rifles of your own, show harmony with the world and a weapon against us?"

The effect Ell-Tee was wanting came harder than he figured. Trent was dumbstruck, baffled as his mouth met the floor.

"If you really want my opinion, Trent," continued Ell-Tee, letting formalities slide, "Echidna to Echidna and not some technological pursuing zealot, as you see me as, but I really think all of this will come to a head when the war is over–"

"Do you really think that?" the Petty Officer asked unmoved.

Ell-Tee shook his head, "I do. You see, Petty Officer, this will show our people–and they are _our_ people–that we can flourish through technology, and that our past mistakes could have been avoided by misunderstanding of the things we possess, and from ourselves. We do care, Trent. We are the light from the darkness you all plunged yourselves into when you asked the Guardians to round up all your stuff, and in essence, lowered our people from the greatest civilization on Mobius to a second rate race. Look how Albion has turned out. We could have been on their pace of things, but hopefully not at their level of pacifism."

"You know that wouldn't have happened," interjected Trent scornfully.

"What? The war, or the flourish of our kind?"

Again, Trent was stumped, but this time he was trying to reason with his outburst.

"Trent, if we didn't care, we would've had Eggman destroy ever last bit of you. He follows in lock-step like us for technology. But where we fail to see eye-to-eye with him is when he started slaughtering _our own people_. We know where we come from. The question is, do you?"

Silence spread through the air finely.

"And her?" Trent questioned, his head locking forward like his arms had unwatched across his chest.

Ell-Tee let his thoughts come carefully. There was still no way around it. "Kommissar will be Kommissar. I can't deal with her, and neither can Stenson."

His reply was to the window. "Then we will still be at war once we're done with this one. I'm sorry Ell-Tee," Trent said, eerily calm, "but even though our relationship at this stage has been great, and even promising, she will always be there as the fork in the road, and I cannot look at you with the comfort of friendship...knowing that it will eventually be the death of me."

_BLIP!_

Ell-Tee relaxed his head on the wall. "One day, Trent, I hope that can be dispelled. I really do. Until then, I have to side with you're point of view. I too can't look at you either as a friend... that even as an Echidnian. It's a shame we have to be afraid of cutting each other's throats."

"Sir, radar contact," reported Trent, his tone reflecting duty of a suddenness that seemed to crush Ell-Tee. He wondered if the Petty Officer actually heard his last plea.

Climbing to his feet, dreads and all, he made his way through the gentle rocking of the ship to the console Trent was hovering around with the other brown echidna. When he peered over Trent's left shoulder and let his hand find a place on the mantle to steady himself over, his face was washed in the sallow green the round screen projected. The sweeping bar was just approaching the aft the ship. To the left of the dot that signified the center of the _Hawking_, a lone green blotch marked the edge of the circumference of the screen. It was far off; two kilometers at best from Ell-Tee's judgement. But anything in this world was never far off.

"Vickers, get on the port side with a set of binoculars," Ell-Tee advised evenly. There was no need to shout out orders just yet. Everything still needed to be played to the coolest degree.

The line passed over the same spot the contact blotch was over...nothing echoed back.

Ell-Tee was now holding his breath. What could he do? What could he order? A run through battle-stations was a very sincere option, but one he was reluctant to exercise. Lar-Na was on his mind. And so was her slumber with Stenson.

"Anything, Vickers?" he asked, turning his head to the door.

"It's a soup out here, sir!"

He growled at the screen, shoving off of it before making his way to the outside, beside Vickers. With a snatch, he grabbed the binoculars and peered through them. The stunned expression Vickers had was whipped away when he saw Ell-Tee's serious look scour upon his face, his arms sweeping with every turn of his head at the sky. It was more than pitch-black, it was a suffocating vale of fog and darkness. One that now tightened both of their chests. Even the night vision wasn't cutting through it.

Another sweep, another bolt through his chest. Ell-Tee was cursing the silent air, saved from the engines thundering away down below, and the churning water of the sea. "I'm not falling for ghost echoes this time, Corporal, so don't say it."

"Me either–"

A scream ripped through the air. Not of organic but of shrieking engines shooting over their heads. Ell-Tee for the moment he moved with the sound caught the heat signature of the twin afterburners leaping out the back of something the blur orbs hid from the night vision, following them as they disappeared over the bow of the ship and what he could tell, turning back from the direction it came from.

"BATTLE-STATIONS! Tell the gunners to go in radar targeting mods."

"Will it matter?" shouted Vickers, "the thing's going to be flying below it!"

Ell-Tee snapped his head from the binoculars with teeth bearing his outburst of rage. "Don't question me just yet, Corporal. Just do it now!"

Vickers nodded his head with a tightened face and bolted down the steps.

Putting the binoculars back at his eyes, Ell-Tee seemed to reach back with his head: "Petty Officer, pass down the order, and start pouring on the speed. Right full rudder!"

"Roger that! Helmsman, right full rudder! Engines to all ahead full. Gunners to their stations."

Another sweep turned up nothing in the phantom sky. "Any radar contact?"

"Yes, sir...but its moving away still–almost out of range," shouted back the now breathless Petty Officer.

Grunting at the top of his lungs, Ell-Tee stepped away from the railing and brought it to himself to step back inside. He almost hit the radar station at a running pace. What his eyes descried when his hands fell by the operator's wasn't comforting to an echidna who liked seeing his prey rather than searching for it. However hard he tried he couldn't be on the sending end of an ambush all the time. Looking back behind him, he witnessed the telegraphs ringing their message that the engine room was ahead of their game. Trent was still barking orders through the sound-powered telephone around his neck, and the helmsman was now leaning on the wheel, the ever push of the sea fighting against as from what Ell-Tee could see, the red echidna putting every ounce of strength into his body. Now he had to wait just a little while, maybe a minute or two, maybe not even that before he gave the order to swing the _Hawing_ wide to the port.

He swallowed as hard as he could, the radar had circled its entire viewing area, leaving nothing in its wake.

In the excitement and the now roaring engines of the ship he managed to hear the ship's intercom squawk. It was Stenson.

"_Ell-Tee, report."_

Venturing to the back wall as fast as haste could carry him, he snagged the mike off its nook. "Field Marshal–Captain, we've had a flyby–unknown enemy–presuming hostile at the moment!"

"I heard the call to battle-stations, do you need me up there, Ell-Tee?" came the surprising question. Enough so it took awhile for Ell-Tee to answer it.

"Sir, it would be nice if you could," he shyly replied, trying hard to fight the timid shake in his voice. Why was he scared? Maybe it was the feeling that something was really hunting him.

"I'm on my way...just hold tight, Ell-Tee."

And the speaker went dead.

But his head didn't. "Left full rudder!"

"Aye-sir, left rudder helmsma–"

The way Trent had cut himself off jolted Ell-Tee's eyes to meet his. He could see the bewilderment in his complexion as a hand slammed up against his ear to push the telephone's ear piece closer to his lobe to hear. "Repeat!" he shouted into the mike. A moment passed, his breath intensifying as his eyes raked back and forth, like he was reading the information rather than hearing it. Then his whole concentration broke to the radar station. "Turn on the intercom from the sonar-room."

"Contact?" hollered Ell-Tee.

"Sonar has something and they're tracking it towards us!"

"Distance?"

Trent shouted the orders through the microphone on his chest.

The reply came through the intercom:

"_Eight-hundred meters and closing–"_

_BWIIINNG!!...PWIING!!_

"_Active sonar, sir. High pitched motor behind it!"_

Ell-Tee couldn't have been slower to identify what it was. "Torpedo in the water!" he shouted above the ranging engines.

"Rudder at the stops, sir!" relayed the helmsman.

"Straighten us out! Petty Officer, tell engine room to slow us down!"

Trent's eyes were brisk with fright. "Sir, that's active sonar–"

_BWIIINNG!!...PWIING!!_

"Okay, so what do I need to do?" Ell-Tee asked feverishly. He felt his eyes wallow to fear.

"I don't know, we're not outfitted for countermeasures–"

"_Sonar–bridge; contact closing at six-hundred meters, no deviation!"_

"Right full rudder!" Ell-Tee blurted out.

"Aye, sir!"

_BWIINNG!!...PWIING!!_

"What are you doing?" Trent thrashed.

Ell-Tee took a breath that he needed. "Trying for an over shoot. It's the best possible way for this. We keep the speed on, let it trail us and before impact we swing left and let it slide to the right."

Trent couldn't calm his breathing, staring at Ell-Tee and running his words through his head.

_BWIIINNG!! PWIING!!_

"If we do this, we'll loose contact with it once it goes into our baffles," observed Trent, calmness however already leaving him.

"_Sonar–Bridge; four-hundred meters and closing–still no deviation. It's homing on us!"_

Ell-Tee's tone came as a snap, his eyes hard and cold. "Rudder at mid-ships, Petty Officer! Tell sonar to keep tracking this–call out the damn distance."

"AYE–_SIR_!" replied Trent with his teeth bearing his opinion. It wasn't a moment until he relayed the order through the sound-powered telephone at his chest with revulsion.

_BWIINNG!!...PWIING!!_

"_Three-hundred meters! Its still homing!"_

Ell-Tee felt pushed now, straying his eyes to the floor, and when he couldn't find comfort anywhere on the metal plating, he growled within himself and marched to the outside deck. His hands found the railing almost instantly, bracing himself against the rushing air and pitching motions of the _Hawking_ fighting the sea.

_BWIING!!...PWIIING!!_

His heart was far from racing, it was succumbing to his adrenalin, punching at his chest walls with a force to cripple him if his strength wasn't what made him. His neck felt tired, though finding himself looking down at the rushing water below his feet, his long dreads lifting up from the graded deck and adding more weight to the strain.

"_Two hundred meters and–"_

_BWIING!!...PWIIING!!_

He was shouting at himself. What more could he do? Turning back inside the bridge, he eyed Trent before looking at the helmsman. "Call it out at a hundred. Stand by to throw that sucker all the way to the left!"

_BWIING!!...PWIIING!!_

"Aye, sir," replied Trent.

_BWIING!! PWING!!_

There was nothing more he could do. Just wait. Just wait and hope his gamble could pay off with everyone's lives still on Mobius.

"_Hundred meters!"_

"LEFT FULL RUDDER!" And with his venomous voice bouncing all over the interior, he bounced on the wheel with the helmsman and rocketed his robotic and natural arm into action rotating down on the wheel as the helmsman pushed it over. The joy of progress seemed to outweigh his fright through it all. It was coming over him like a euphoric drug, like he reached a whole different plane of existence.

Then the wheel slammed to a hard stop, almost ricocheting back but stopping when Ell-Tee applied force to it.

The turn was slow. The harsh pinging sound was now to the point where he couldn't differentiate between the sending tone and the echo. His ears began to hurt, wondering if they were going to bleed from the abusive pounding that screamed through the speaker.

"Eighty meters...sonar confirms–its following us!"

Trent's voice was more than an uproar, it was tense with fear, tense with his own indecision. Ell-Tee didn't have to look far but to the outside for air. His legs pumped him to the foredeck before he could think that he was outside, his eyes transfixed on the stern of the ship, trailing the rails where his vision didn't see the open deck, but people riding on it, partaking in the night air. They weren't there physically but somehow he could see them.

"Prepare all hands for collision!" he shouted, never turning over his shoulder to make the order.

And still, the pinging intensified. His heart pounded the rhythm with it, keeping in time with every decibel that grew louder, faster. His biometric hand squeezed the railing tighter. His eyes focused more than they should have on the water. He knew he couldn't see the coming death under the waves, but he longed to try.

"Forty-meters!"

On the last call, he turned himself around to see if the faces inside the bridge matched his. They were all charged with fear, just like his. Their hands were bracing for something, just like his. Their heads were lowered from the pounding hammer that was the sonar of the torpedo coming for them...just like his.

But his eyes didn't look to theirs. Somehow they became locked on Stenson, the Field Marshal just shy of coming in through the adjacent passageway into the bridge, out of breath, riddled with fear in his very stance that was much the same as Ell-Tee's. He was glad that he saw him...Stenson brought with him comfort, knowing he wasn't the only one of his stature to feel the way he did. It would be the numbing of the pain he wouldn't feel. The air that moved his thick dreads, pushing them farther than any girl he had ever met who could move them with such intensity on her own. His muzzle grew warm. His ears with a suddenness of a blink filled with a heavy pressure that he never knew could exist.

And the darkness was suffocating.

* * *

WOW! This sucker took me a month to write out. And from here on it's a running affair. My salivating wonders though are: how was the sincere moments, how did I do for Knuckles and Sonic egging each other, the kids behind the wall on the outside singing, how were the words to the little song I wrote (note: not much of a lyric writer) and the ending? How did the split scene work. Course it's not the ending of the story itself, but it is getting close. Oh yes, how was the sonar spacing? Little spur of the moment idea I had. Also, how did this chapter flow? That is my biggest concern.

Other than that, Sonic fans get ready...our favorite characters will be taking the spotlight from some of my OC's. And action to be had by all.


	33. Utensils and Water

My apologies for not updating for so long. The world has been treating my with ill-intentions and my passionate work has suffered at many ends. But the great news is, this chapter is my own editing, and I have two more in the wings to be edited and one chapter to be finished. Then, it is four chapters left to THE END! There will be another novel after this one, I plan on it being shorter, but also more action packed and a new underlying, but centered idea about Aleutian. I think the reason why this one has been long is because it's based more so on characters than the plot, but both are very intertwined as I hope this chapter will show. All the coming chapters coming have had visions of certain scenes coming through my head; with beginning's and ends to them. But like this book, it's finding what makes up the middle ground. This chapter does show my lack of attention either when I'm tired, or I'm struggling to move on, but still wanting to keep the same feeling. It's a very demanding struggle. My motivations for this hasn't diminished from Aleutian's story, but crafting it has weighed very heavily on me.

But, anyhow, Disclaimer: I own nothing of the characters from Sega, or Archie, and respect all rights of their creators.

Now everyone repeat after me if you've seen "Team America: World Police." "**We've gotta have a montage!..._MONTAGE!"_** This is kinda it!

* * *

**Utensils and Water**

By: Mauser

* * *

"And how are we this late-afternoon?"

What more could he ask for; the lift of her grey, furred face, her brightening eyes, her enriching smile that followed, Lemeans could've gazed at her for eternity if she'd held this pose, so relaxed and relieved of the tension she had from yesterday when the koala brought her back from Eggman's oil-fields. Absent was the wary, removed face of exhaustion and with it, the passion to give up her life just to be rid of her struggle. "I heard our strength had almost finally given up?" the Leopard eyed with a knowing smile. "Good thing for friends who watch over us, eh?" he surly winked at her, balancing himself tenderly over his cane while holding a ladle, posed to serve the young female mouse's meal, and hopefully her, and the rest of the prison's last meal of sunflower stew. The steaming sludge reminded him of the grey matter in a being's skull, quite possibly his own bubbling in this formidable heat. How he longed for just a _single_ tree much less a full patch.

"I swear we have angels among our friends, Lemeans," the girl said quietly, perhaps ashamed of her ordeal. "But I feel better today...I really do."

The confidence in her voice called for his to drop to one of caution, but yet sly in nature. "I do hope so, my lady. I have a grand intuition that you are going to need it." He watched her visage melt with the pounding sun as Lemeans was sure her mind brought home the image he etched in her head. He leaned closer, like giving her a careful kiss on the nape, pouring the contents out of the ladle as well. "I need you to round up all the kids and their mothers when the time comes," he whispered, eyes coasting to either side for the enemy watching them.

"What time...when?" she replied, almost unsure of the entrustment he was giving her.

"It could be soon...but for now, at least keep good tabs on them. If our chance is good, they go first."

And like that: "I understand," came her reply. Then came her back towards him, less energized with a slump at her vertebrae under her tattered green t-shirt...but grounded in her set assignment.

A nudge at his elbow broke his spell from the distancing girl, making his head turn over to his left shoulder. His daunting eyes meet the much greyer, furred hare.

"Lemeans, David says the rear tower guard hasn't left his post."

Wandering his head around, Lemeans caught those vacant, soulless stares of four bots, some twenty feet away, they themselves huddled in their own little group hovering in the corner just behind him. Making a disgusted face was all he could manage as cover from their conniving conversation against them. Pray to Aurora they thought it was over the meal.

"And the rovers?" he gingerly murmured with his face turned around to address one of his few handlers of the _under-growth_ in the camp.

"Keeping pace."

A slight nod along with a strained roll of his head, as if pouring out his frustration from his left ear. "More likely they will be summoned to round us up. If that the kids."

"Or keeping an eye on the sidelines...Mikhal says he and Christian can tangle with them, but they need a weapon."

"I know," Lemeans seemed to sigh. Like an itch that needed to be scratched, he felt his eyes searching out a particular youngster he hoped was still in the waiting line of starving Mobians that were burdening down on him, and doubling his hope that the kid wasn't creating too soon of any mischief. He stopped himself before he could betray his motives to the every watching bots. _"It's diffiently today, ole boy."_

A fidget of his head. "Mikhal and Christian are also are master-key to our back door. I just hope either one of them can aim–"

The wonders of Lemeans' trained mind broke him off to face the east. Servos, the sound of them in a unison march grabbed his attention before Leo's could get snagged by the dull electronic rhythm. Past the double wire fence line, Lemeans' face squinted at first but then melted into a frown touching at the horror he felt come with it when his eyes picked out a moving jumble of black ink across the shimmering X-ray heat void. A moment past when he realized he was holding his breath, forcing himself not to curse at the approaching image he was watching become more defined. At first he could see light in the middle of the marching column. A calm heartbeat later, he saw the rank and file of the Eggbots marching briskly in a two by two wedge column, maybe at least five rows deep.

Leo's touch at his arm brought Lemeans' now worried face around to the hare who tried to begin a sentence in a very worried tone. "I thought..."

The twin gates opening for the new arrivals broke him for the leopard. Lemeans always hated watching them move. Such precise precision. Not a fault to see in their pivot and turns as the column split itself, like coming to a fork-in-the-road and both files taking their own path to the direct north and south. It was like they were an army knowing they were being watched constantly by their superiors for any break in discipline, never letting a step become misused, achieving what no free-minded soldier could do. To be a machine.

Lemeans ranked their weapons as fast as his foreboding mind could manage before suspicion of his stare caught the suspicions of those he was watching. At least four with swords, three armed with a blaster cannon on their right arm, two carrying lances and shields, and the last bot that brock off from the rear and stopped rock solid at the gate possessing a thermal-plasma launcher over its shoulder–a large round tube that Mikhail wanted _more_ than badly.

Conquering his silent stare when the gates were slowly closed by the four front Eggbots, he let his reason for his distaste for the bots bring his sharp, fearful eyes to Leo. "We _thought_." Gathering himself inward, he straightened his back and then his face, bringing forth a smile to a female, brown furred lynx in what was left of her sky-blue, now bleached, dress standing next in line. Her six year old son accompanied her, both of them holding out their makeshift metal plates for their, possible, last meal.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lemeans," she said very courteous, very brightly, before stealing her smile to her son. He too was a lynx, but his fur was bit on the yellow side. "C'mon, Corey, you need to say hi, to Mr. Lemeans."

But he didn't, and Lemeans knew where his attention was off to, possibly had followed his own during his moment guarded survey. The newly arrived bots had concentrated themselves in a line blocking the entrance and a good portion of the view of the road to the oil-fields. The kid's head was turned in that direction. And Lemeans realized so was his. Shaking himself, he poured the steaming porridge in the young boy's dish, the sudden, added weight shaking the young lynx back around and eyeing at his plate. Lifting his face, his hazel eyes met Lemeans'. "Ah, I'm sorry, sir. Th-thank you."

The mother smiled down at him. "There you go, Corey."

And yet Lemeans frowned once more. "Ma'dam," he offered in a very quiet, pressing tone, "keep him close. Understood?" At first she seemed puzzled, but then he saw her give a nod. "Do you know Bridget?"

"I do," she replied confidently, looking for the mouse that was in front of her and Corey, but finding that her eyes had drifting over her shoulder at the perfect row of Eggbots instead.

"Find her and help her. She'll give you the details of her assignment. Nothing complicated but all the important."

Again, her nod came. "I see...well," –she looked down at her son, grabbing his free arm and tugging it-- "shall we go and munch, Corey."

Lemeans held his faint smile when the mother lead Corey away and towards where the line began at the northern three huts. His voice narrowed to a course grit over his shoulder, "Leo, where's Christian and Mikhail?"

"Watching the rear of the line," Leo returned, bumping his head towards the west.

Lemeans cautiously drifted his head toward the east side of the camp and caught Mikey's droopy ears and laughing face. Why couldn't the leopard push the idea out of his mind that Christian wasn't laughing with the beagle? "Senior Instructor?" he asked next, flexing his voice to pull the panic back.

His answer was three Mobians back in line from where he stood sentry as the server. The green feathered hawk was holding his plate, like the schoolmaster he was, in the grips of his feathers, under his arm as if it were a bundle of books. Following the path of the hawk's gaze, Lemeans could see a young bobcat cub looking up at the hawk, then witnessing the quick dart of the hawk's eyes to the bots, then to him. _"Henry is well aware." _And the schoolmaster's open black short sleeve shirt was fitting to the core of the coming trails. Being that the pain he suffered as the principle, dean and the one and only teacher to a prison camp not favorable to his_ precious _work, he was also the wiser of the residence in the Great Plains' Camp. Lemeans had no grand illusion that the hawk understood about the importance of their care package locked up in his school-hut. So much so that he used his borrowed_ flock _to sing for their cover. Leo and David had pressured parents to gather around some to listen to their darlings sing, then to have them scurry off to something important so the bots didn't spawn an arousal of interest, or find something to entertain their A.I. chip by breaking up an uplifting serenade.

Thus far it had worked.

Lemeans, still keeping his eye and stern face to Henry, maneuvered his voice to a degree of sureness and fortitude that drove Leo's total attention to him.

"My friend, I must say it's a pleasant afternoon for a break."

The hare fished his right hand for Lemeans' left elbow, patting it that everything was understood. "Tired? I could accompany you back to your hut," he said out loud for any sensitive sensory device to hear, however working his voice to sound concern all the while.

"No, no need, Leo. Just fetch me my _water_ and_ utensils_. Henry should have them. I think I'll dine here, if that's okay."

His smile was gifted. His voice was trained. "Pardon me, sir," Leo said thoughtfully, then excusing himself from the long table. He purposely hunched his back as his stride took him to his next object, among others. As he approached Henry, he broadened his smile to the hawk before letting it gap and lower down to the boy now between them.

"Hello, Leo," Henry greeted as plain of a tone as the region.

"Hey," came the hare's fast return. "What's up with the kid?"

A snort from the hawk's belly held the answer. "Troublesome as can be. Caught him with his slingshot again shooting at _tails_." Henry's tone turned solid as steel in the suddenness of lightning. "Ms. Uula isn't laughing, Dexter."

The little bobcat cub bowed in obedience to the scolding, but Leo could see the phantom shrug of his shoulders. And that was just fantastic!

Swallowing the dryrot out of his throat, Leo glared passively at Henry. "Lemeans' says it's time for a break. Wants his utensils; says you might have them."

If the sun hadn't dried out what little humor Leo had for surplus, he would've laughed at Henry's stark widen of his eyes. "You're joking?"

Leo fought to shake his head vividly, instead, managing a slow sway, mimicking his best played out disbelief. Unfortunately, Henry's sharp retort and perplexed grimace wasn't life or death playacting. "You know him, growing tired with every passing sunset."

"So's our sick-in-bed folks too. Maybe he should visit them and take a tally."

But Henry already knew how many a few strong, and hopefully capable backs were needed to usher out the still fighting souls stuck in the middle, eastern hut, lying in their beds to be purged from the camp. A quick scan of the line brought up the recruits of that mockery of an army. There were a few early teenage mobians in the eleven still prospering kids that made up the camps imprisoned youth. Four actually, Henry knowing them well enough on how he had to calm them down before they created their _own_ underground network, possibly disrupting Lemeans' in the processes. A young bear, thinned in body weight and fur, was the strongest out of the four, standing just four person's back from where he and Leo where generating their end-all conspiracy. Somewhere in the crowd was a very spirted minded female, nanny goat, her white fur mixed with tan patches arounder her face was all Henry could visualize of her. And like the rest of the camp, wearing what little she was brought in with: a short sleeve shirt, and a short denim skirt. His last two angels were a brother and sister pair, of the sister he could see impatiently viewing around the mobians in front of her. Both were wolves, both growing at their expected rates of a fourteen and fifteen year old but just about the height of the average, ground dwelling mobian species–all except Mikhail and Leo. And both wolf cubs were orphans. It was hard for Henry to leave them out of the coming fanfare of freedom, or final resting, but the five mobians he the middle-eastern hut, hut _sixk_ it was affectionately named, had no way, or choice, of leaving with the rest.

In all this, twenty-two stood a good chance of ultimate freedom thanks to theLemeans' _utensils _awaiting action in his schoolhouse. But for that chance to be used wastefully lied with something else entirely out of either his, Lemeans' or Leo's control. The bots...and panic.

"Is everyone else informed?" the quizzical schoolmaster inched out in the air.

Leo gave a hard shrug, but it being a very nice conformed nod in the covert stance of things. "The _water_ is yet to be fetched, I'm afraid. Plus the counting of what is left of the spices."

The little bobcat below them piped up. "I can get the water, big-ears," he volunteered, though his demanding voices was more on the lines of barking orders to give him the job.

"That won't be necessary, Dexter," replied Leo, mockingly at the least.

And Henry pushed in his voice dryly, "Yes! Besides, we have another job we would like you to undertake with your mischievous talent and skill of the slingshot."

Dexter's look was very typical of the lad who's terrible forms of entertainment were actually being asked to be performed for a _cause_! Bright-eyed; his face was on the verge of falling apart with glee. "When do I start, mister?"

"_Of all days, he's manners show,"_ Henry huffed to himself. "Leo will have the little details you need to educate you for the task."

"There won't be no math involved, right? You know I hate math," protested the kid, his salivating face disappearing.

Leo's reply was unexpected, of that in a correction. "_Any_ math, Dexter. And yes, but you won't have to check you're work." He held his tongue until the bobcat's attention was retrieved. "Now can you be quiet and follow me," scowled Leo.

Dexter nodded, gulping to Henry's delight at Leo's muffled, growling tone. And to more of Henry's delight, Leo ushered the troublesome kid between the west and center row of huts. He was sure when Leo would stop back at the schoolhouse Dexter was going to throw a tirade. But once the door was opened and Lemeans' grand silverware shown, the little tyrant better straighten up and become the little devil he was to his own kind and put his energies to the bots.

And as for Henry's summoning energy, and feeling the time molting away, and that of his feathers in the punishing heat, he looked to fetch for Lemeans' _water_. He looked to count the Eggbots inside the fence line.

* * *

Solutions. That was what he was faced with. Not to find them, for they have already been found, but for Sir Charles Hedgehog, member of the Brain Trust, and profiting business owner of a hot dog stand–and his dear nephew possibly the best patron he has–Uncle Chuck was thrashing what some thought was a boundless head of knowledge into figuring out a new formula to understand how Eggman created the solution. To his right was his slide rule, disjointed from its original rectangled stagnant form, giving him a new course to take in his numerical endeavor. To his left, a pile of unused paper covering the main keyboard to Nicole, her, herself dominate it seemed if one couldn't discount her processors bellowing their noise around the Command Center. Scattered around the legs of his chair were the graves of his failed attempts; refuse of paper he let idly lay.

And for King Elias Acorn, he was creating his own formula of his solution on how he needed to repay Uncle Chuck, and also Rotor and even Tails on their slaving efforts to help keep his family living, prospering...presiding. In the hushed lights of the room, only those of Nicole's monitors giving off the green lettering and symbols, and a few lightbulbs themselves still on but weakly, Elias understood the solitude of the darkness then and there. It seemed to help bring on meaningful thoughts. Those of why he cared for his friends as friends and not as subjects. Why his wife and child felt like added weight over everything he saw as an obstacle that might jeopardize there safety and his well-being with them. Why sometimes he still wondered if he was really fit to wear the crown that rested on his head.

All this prompted a step forward to Sir Charles, seemingly stepping over his internal woes and forward to the very present problem. With another forced step he reflected his real reason why he was there; his friends were still missing. Sonic, Antoine, and Knuckles still hadn't reported in, Sally's ineptness to simmer the boiling breakdown of her optimism, Julie-Su's already agitation that has since been beyond the threshold to pull back, the Prowers themselves haven't reported in, and furthermore, not reporting their situation from a mission he asked them to undertake...Elias was here to see first hand how the efforts and the waiting were holding up. To give moral support.

There was a pause in his hand, though, just before he carelessly placed it on Charles' shoulder to arouse him for a quick reprieve of his mind. Where the acting King's conscience went was not of surprising Uncle Chuck; that notion was nothing but a figment inside a swirling atom of hydrogen:

"_Aleutian...are you still missing from the world as well?"_

His hand fell to Chuck. "Sir Charles–" The aged hedgehog exploded with a jolt up from his chair, landing back down on it while doing a fast turn of his head, and flailing his jittered arms before following all his movements up with his crusty, though wise reflecting voice:

"Yo!" His eyes darted to the figure behind him, his long, bushy grey moustache unsettled as he. As his heat regained its steady rhythm, Charles instantly noted Elias' royal robes...much less his mixed embarrassed and surprised face. "Oh, your Highness!" he startling said, sounding as if he was out of breath, "you scared the Mathagorine Theorem out of me."

Chuck's hands went for his ears, Elias noticing now that Charles was under a set of headphones purposely built to place the small foamed speakers inside the canals of his, or any other Mobian species that had pointed ears. "I'm sorry, Sir Charles. Wasn't my intension to scare you."

A smile from the hedgehog, hoping to bring one on for the young King. "I doubt you couldn't have, boy even if you knocked. Was listening to some old classical stuff you youngin's wouldn't appreciate." Charles brandished his left hand accusingly at his current work. "It's a very effective tool in this war."

Elias rewarded Charles with an understanding smile at last. "C'mon, _Uncle Chuck_, you know I do...and by choice."

Charles let out a titter. "_Heh,_ maybe there's hope after all." And he and Elias had a small, shared laugh, Chuck broke it up though when he saw the slight seriousness in Elias' pose. "So," he said, beginning the insert of his probe, "why does an upstanding King want to visit here."

"I'm sure you know, Sir Charles," Elias answered with a light sigh. "Any word?"

Chuck twisted his head to Nicole, then back to Elias, his eyes bringing disappointment. "Nicole hasn't made a _beep_ since the last intercepted transmission."

"And the code," Elias asked, a little more pressing.

The main door to Elias's left slide open. Female silhouettes were engulfed in the rush of the light into the Command Center. Slowly as their strides and shadows would allow, Elias watched his sister walked into the room, Julie-Su following her with Bunnie and Commander St. John in tow of the rigid echidna. Julie's and Bunnie's faces were all but combative. Sally however was holding the fort down with calmness in her visage and march.

"Sire," chorused Geoffrey in greeting.

"Commander," Elias nodded, then focused on his sister. "Sally. Welcome back, I guess."

The heiress stepped to her brother and embraced him, crossing her chin over his shoulder. "Elias, what brings you here?"

Elias gentle pushed back. "Oh, just me. Coming to observe the front lines." He then looked past her to Julie-Su. She possessed a smile, but Elias knew there was something underneath the mask that spelled utter terror to her heart. "Milady, how are we?" he cautiously asked, injecting his best cordialness of the Echidna society.

Julie though, didn't posses them. "Elias...you don't have to go that far with me. I'm just like everybody else. Trooper, soldier, anything but _Milady_ will do just fine." Her smile then went benign. "And I'm holding up like Bunnie and Sally are."

St. John grunted like he was clearing his throat. He should've anticipated the shifted eyes to him, but no; he looked ashamed and surprised at the same time, holding his squeezed hand just below his mouth. "Wot?" he festered calmly in his best cogney accent.

Elias was fast for the quip, hoping for it to be an ice breaker. "Just stated opinion is all, right Commander?" he said very flatly.

"Right."

An honest nod from Geoff said it was perfectly secure to move on, and to do it now.

"Well then," Elias divertingly said with a voice bright as the late afternoon sun. "so what's this enclave for?"

"Gettin' ready to make a call," chimed in Bunnie, her voice flowing, but laden with her attributed agitation.

Elias looked to Geoffrey from confirmation of this was in the best interest. Sally however obstructed his view and dispel.

"It's been long enough, Elias. Julie-Su's ready to take the Chaotix and find and get our people back."

"As soon as I break up their game," Julie-Su groaned, her arms crossing.

Elias shook his head effortless in a subtle smile.

Nicole _beeped_ over the slight raise in voices, only Uncle Chuck turning to the console. "Message, Princess!"

Sally drifted her somewhat scorning gaze at Elias to the screen, feeling Nicole's small interruption was a question. "Not yet, Nicole...we need to make up a game–"

The computer's lynx face flashed across the screen, her visage showing a urgency. "No, Sally, message incoming from _Sonic_!"

Geoffey's voice was knee-jerk and brutal over everyone else's. "Put him on!"

Pink, yellow, and brown fur moved to the console. Chuck crashed back into his chair, sliding his headphones on, then pushing all the unmarked papers to the floor before his fingers had an area to glide over the keyboard. His punching of the keys was frantic but very accurate. Before anyone could breath out their first pant of excitement, Sonic's smirking face was plaster in the large overhead screen.

And to Sally's surprise, there was something serious behind his smile.

"Sonic, where are you?" she fired right off, but more so out of concern.

"_Easy Sal, we're okay. Just voluntarily locked up._" A titter from him jumped from the screen.

Geoffrey was already on the counter. "Now that's a bloomin' start. Is there a rap-around sport coat involved?"

"Geoff!" came Sally's curt snap in his direction.

For Julie, it was a pleasing sight to see him cower back. _"Jerk!"_

"_Hey, smelly pants," _sniped Sonic,_ "This call is collect and _I'm_ paying the bill._"

Her face lite up in a scowl; this was about as much Julie was going to take of Sonic having a verbal brawl over the com-link. "Sally, tell him to get someone responsible on."

It was a enough said. "Hey Sonic, is Knuckles there?" Sally asked deadpan, though Julie-Su see she was trying to hold something back in her voice.

All ears in the control room could hear the shuffling of feet, and jabbering of insulting voices through the speaker. The camera was shifting as the screen seemed to tossed around like a ball in a playground. Julie smiled cunningly when she heard Knuckles' light baritone voice:

"_Give me that, blue!"_

The screen steadied like an aircraft suddenly leveling off in flight with Knuckles' stern and fortitude face as the horizon. "_Yea, go Sally._"

Bunnie answered for her. "M'ah Antoine?" she almost cried out.

A very faint, "_Oui!_" sparked the air.

Several sighs of relief splintered inside the dim room. Chests even seemed to relax from the pressure of the worried.

"Okay, what's going on? Why did Sonic say–"

Knuckles' voice came like an attack at a spelling bee. "_It's a prison camp to house Eggman's forced laborers at a docking and fueling facility for his Eggfleet!_"

Sonic's bland voice came with an addition. "_Only part of it._"

"We'll get the technicals later," Sally interjected. "What about the prison."

Knuckles' tone was very gritted, very tight. Julie-Su watching his face mold into a demanding texture. "_Not much longer to live. Sonic snuck us in here to break them out from within. Supposedly five O'clock our time, but we need the transports here and pronto._"

Elias turned to his sister. "How fast can you be there," he said just as fast as Knuckles was elaborating.

"_The Mark Two_–give it five."

"_We need something bigger. Our _mobian _in the camp is planning on breaking the whole place out._ _Says there are very sick people amongst them. Wants to drop the healthy ones off somewhere and we get the sick ones._"

"How many, Knux?" asked Julie-Su almost in his same tone.

"_Twenty–twenty five, give or take, Su._"

Geoffrey was ready for his assessment from that. "Expect the _Turbo-Lifter_ then. Its prepped now, so that cuts a huge lot of time off."

"_Give me an E.T.A!_" Knuckles practically barked.

"Half hour, maybe the full hour," Sally launched back, but for all intensive purposes, disarming.

It was met with Knuckles' face turning away from the camera. "_Ha! Hear that, Sonic–thirty minuets...not two-stupid-hours._"

"Hey boys, remember..._collect_!" shimmered Bunnie's crossed voice.

Yet, with all the voices lashing at the air, Uncle Chuck was still listening in the seclusion of his earphones, practicing great restraint either not to laugh or handle the conversation all together. His purpose for the time being was to observe that their communication signal wasn't being intercepted by loathing ears. The monitor in front of him was tuned to such readings from satellite feeds, that if or when an additional, alien signal appeared on the screen in a color other than green, or if a codex was added to Nicole's encrypted signal, his hand was hover just over the kill switch. A very shrewd and ruthless kill switch to one very essential–

"Charles..." came Nicole's sudden voice over the muffled frantic ones behind him. But yet her sheer calm and slowness sent a riddle of shivers down his spine. "...Charles, I'm picking up a weak broadcast. The voice sounds very distressed. I'm patching it through to you now–doing my best to record it and boost the receiving spectrum."

It was while scanning her eyes to find Bunnie's that Sally witnessed Chuck's hands slowly trace up to his ears, pushing the speakers further into his canal. From her standpoint she concluded that she and everyone else were making to much of an upheaval. Neglecting to continue on to judge her best-freinds reaction, Sally's attention went back to the screen where Knuckles was still in the forefront. "Enemy force?" Why didn't anyone yet ask this?

"_Fifteen or more from the last head count from the camp. Said their were getting lax in their programming._"

"Bollocks!" sniped St. John, inching closer to the screen with a unmoved face. "Eggman doesn't take chances, bloody robots don't get complacent. Bottom line!"

Apparently Knuckles could see the skunk with the light-green beret on his small screen. His face was filled with unpleasantness. Frankly very peeved. "_Hey, want a tour! You're there–I'm here..._"

"_We're _here_, dude!_" drifted in Sonic's voice from the side. There were always some qualities for Nicole's speakers to be in _stereo_.

"Look, times running out for this com-link. When's the break out?" Julie-Su forced in, seeing from the corner of her that Elias was just on looking like a kid in his father's factory–if Max ever made one of his own.

"_I don't know, babe. I don't even think we're suppose to be calling you right now. It's a..._" Knuckles' attention turned away from the camera, his face darting off to the left of the screen. Then, his expression turned cold with panic. "_Hold one...there's a knock at the door._"

Not a soul was holding their breath. Julie-Su the one feeling her heart beat in her ears.

The Guardian's face shot back to the camera. "_Gotta go, Knuckles out!_"

And it was like Julie's soul was ripped out of her when Knuckles' image blackened out of existence. It as if that last single transmission was going to be his last goodbye. Her facial muscles were straining into a jagged frown, her hands, natural and cybernetic were clenched in bitter frustration of helplessness to save her soul-mate. Even her eyes were narrowed to almost slits of hostility against her emotions and the coming passionate spike to her yearning heart.

Thankfully it Sally's charged voice that separated her from the approaching despair and her true calling of the soldier inside of her:

"Okay!...they're alive and in battle spirits. It's all we need. Time to get bust people. Julie?" The former Dark Legionnaire, turned her ridged face to Sally. "Get the Chaotix; you're going as rapid deployment in the _Mark Two_."

"Roger that, Princess!" came the ripping reply. "Orders for when we get there?"

"Fast strike and cover. Find the stragglers and pluck them–"

Chuck wasn't hearing anything of the conversation, making his intrusion for him all the more distant. But all the more alarming.

"Princess," he shouted vividly over his back at her, "I'm picking up a distress broadcast." He felt all eyes plunge to him, but he never looking at them, but instead the paper littered floor, focusing on the lone earphone chirping at his senses. The air couldn't have been stiller for the gathered. "...it's..." His face slowly turned up to them in utter terror. He couldn't find himself to divulge what he was hearing.

Chuck's hand speared across the main keyboard console and snapped a switch up that brought the recording to the main speakers.

The voice was very frantic...almost surreal that the originated person was ever able to speak at all from what sounded like pain and being out of breath. Alarms were crashing around it as well. And yet, a very disturbing rushing sound of static penetrated the calamity overloading the speakers.

What came next that was very clear grabbed Julie-Su's heart and rammed it clear out her spine.

"_THIS IS THE HAWKING...REPEAT–ehr–THIS IS THE HAWKING...WE'RE TAKING ON WATER FAST...WE'RE SINKING FROM THE STERN! WE NEED HELP! REPEAT THIS IS A MAYDAY...ALBION...MERCIA...ANYONE–WE NEED–_" The voice seemed to have taken in a huge gulp of air, Julie wishing to take it in for herself. Echidnas were dying before her ears. Then the voice returned, subdued with terror. "_OH AURORA! OH AURORA HAVEZZZzzzzzzzzzzz..._"

How could she breath? How was anyone breathing? To hear someone drown while she was surrounded by the precious element to keep the poor echidna alive was the most unnerving, selfish thought that had ever plagued Julie-Su's mind. The struggled gulping from the voice before the radio emulated its static chatter would forever sting her mind with a scare like that of a burn, never healing, never confined to a small line, but a distorted blotch, and never covered with new grow fur...always visible as a form of thriving lividity.

She was completely divided on a course of action...and it was ripping her to shreds.

Chuck's voice was a very wanting, soothing reprieve, even though his explanation was all the more damaging. "That message had a twenty second lag from receiving it, to buffering it, to replaying. It wasn't live..."

"Then there's nothing we can do," concluded St. John. "We need to get our show on the air-streams."

"No!" came Julie-Su's throttling voice. "We need to go and check for any survivors. Call up one of the ships to go."

Geoffrey's head shake was about to deliver the biggest blow to his military pride. "Sorry, 'luv but we need the ships–"

She rushed faster than he could blink, latching onto the fur on his chest and almost slamming her muzzle against his. Her anger betrayed on her face scared the steadfast soldier out of him and claimed his senses to an utter halt.

"That's my people drowning in the ocean over there, you puke of a jerk! So let Aurora help you and me that I don't start breaking necks to get a transport." Her breathing never subsided, only increasing, blowing her expelled air at his face. "You might be first."

It was if he had no choice. The strength from her replaced arm over her natural was strong enough to show him she was very sincere on her _promise_, much less her threat. But all in all, he was speechless, not knowing what to say next to qual the female Echidna that he knew was bordering on two different convictions that meant everything to her core, her still thriving creed from the Dark Legion, and her love. Spies like Commander St. John relied on such beliefs to get people rallied up to be informants and listeners. Even saboteurs. But now those beliefs that can almost be viewed as faults were about to kill him. That, he was sure of from the harsh, demanding look Julie-Su was spearing into his soul. She'd kill an ally to save lives. Again, he had no choice.

For she had made her's.

"Sire?" he calmly called to Elias.

The King was still struck with surprise at Julie-Su's maneuver, but he gained himself back and asked his question. "You're about to leave us thin on numbers, Julie. We're spread out as it is."

Julie's face left Geoffey's to Elias, but trying her absolute best to hold back her emotions. "I wouldn't hear the end of it from Knuckles," she shook her head depressingly, "for that matter hearing about his failings to his own kind." But even in her own statement, she felt something more had contributed to that belief than just the thought of Knuckles.

When she looked further up, her eyes went to Sally's. The Princess's pose so sympathetic it chilled the fire in Julie's yearning, frustrated heart. "Half an hour to them?"

The Princess nodded very affirming. "Half an hour at the least. We can be there and Knuckles will be safe."

She didn't have to add that he could hold his own; to come back to them all, and especially to Julie. Sally was the foremost authority of knowing what Knuckles could pull through. She'd known this from the first war with Robotnick before Julie-Su came into his life, suffusing any relationship between Sally and him to their childhood dreams and letting the future take their course and hearts to someone else.

Like Sonic.

"We're losing daylight," said Sally with a colder tone. "St. John, how many Guard's can you spare?"

Geoffrey felt Julie-Su's hands release him, his balance almost becoming lost when her support faded. Gathering himself as quickly as time would permit, he shrugged some before replying, "It be five at best, but that's giving you enough room for the _Turbo-Lifter_ on the inside."

"Fully armed?" asked Elias sternly.

A tilt of his head. "I could bend some rules to outfit a few with captured blasters. But that's up to you, sire."

"Done!" came Elias quick reply, now decree. Sally looked to him with surprise with it.

Julie-Su's voice was now coy, asking for something she wasn't sure was right to ask for. "Can Doctor Quack come along with us?"

"_Ah_ think we're going to need him from what suga' Knux had said," suggested Bunnie in her southern-bell hospitality manner, though her voice was ready to go to war.

But Sally was the last voice on the manner to claim Doctor Quack. "The _Mark Two_ can be back by the time the _Lifter_ returns. That's unless there are any contingencies that spring up."

"Never the fact, your Highness," voiced Charles from the mix. "Quack has a staff that can take up the slack. Just get someone to make sure the hospital in Knothole is ready for what Sonic brings. It won't be in the castle itself, and for King Max, it's good for the Sire. I'm sure Doctor Quack will agree about not spreading new germs."

"Okay, agreed," resounded Sally's thrust tone. "Julie, you know what you're taking?"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Great! The _Mark Two_ is standing by. Take Rotor with you for the reentry procedures and handling and whoever you need out of the Choatix." Her attention then was thrown to Geoffrey. "Commander, you got a pilot for the _Turbo-Lifter_?"

He snapped to a quick attention. "Aye, but Hershey won't be to thrilled."

"I gotta better idea, Sal!" said Julie-Su. "Ray is a great pilot for us, let them take Rotor."

"You sure?" Sally asked in surprise.

"They also have me...remember?" Julie seemed to eye. After all, technology was a former fling for her, and in a way, still was.

"Then it's settled!"

Bunnie's voice was the last yet to be heard, and it seemed to her it wasn't ever going to be heard. "Uhm, what about me, Sally-girl?"

Sally really didn't want to say it, but she had too.

"You're staying, girl."

The rabbit's eyes widen. "No! I can't just leave Antoine out there. Ah have ta' go!"But there was no arguing about it. Sally needed heavy hitters in and around Knothole just in case this was a well orchestra trap. Something General Prower was fearing. _"If only he was here."_

She shrugged it off, diverting her attention away from her best friend to Chuck. "Anything from Prower?"

Charles' tone was about as frustrated as Bunnie's or Julie-Su's. "Not a thing from the General."

"And of Shadow and Espio?" Julie asked next. They were on Geoffrey's tongue before the echidna spat their names out–actually, he was quite surprised she mentioned Shadow.

"Again, nothing. Nicole was been silent until now."

"Okay then, that's it," came Sally's rallying voice. "We know our jobs, we know our destinations. Charles, send the _Mark Two_ the coordinates of the last broadcast the _Hawking _made, then download the _Turbo _the prison coordinates."

"Consider it done, your Highness!"

"Good..." And like so many times in the previous war, but in her new voice laying vacant because of her elevated status in the monarch...to stay on the sidelines because she was the heiress, Sally repeated the words almost everyone in the room were always wanting to hear to come from her.

"Freedom Fighters, move out!"

* * *

Things were indeed looking up for Snively. The hues in his eyes were very pronounced as they scanned the computer monitor directly in front of him conservatively while two adjacent monitors remained blank to either side, and the hugely, larger screen was dim with the map of Mobius splashed across it.

"_Com-Bot pair online: 1652 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair given last sequences: 1725 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair flight program operational and powered: 1842 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair cloaking program operational and online: 1850 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair systems running normal; diagnostics show no overload of flight and cloaking running tangent: 1703 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair received instructions; data and encryption accepted: 1706 hours local..._

"_Com-Bot pair launched: 1742 hours local..."_

But even with all this Snively knew there was going to be a short pause to reassess their systems once the Com-Bots landed. Possibly even a cool down after the long flight and being virtually a figment of _his_ imagination. No radar, no eyes would see them. Not even the prized inferred. Snively's new assassin-bots were his own ghosts to make his dark wishes come true.

He checked the time on the large, main monitor above him. 1651 hours, his time. _"Almost five! Nine more minutes before the Great Plains Camp is not my responsibility anymore."_ Snively rubbed his long nose with his thumb and index finger. Something he'd seen his uncle do over such a worthless operation in the midst of being done away with, but yet he saw himself imitate it to the exact after-rub with his full hand underneath his nostrils. Like brushing a moustache he didn't have. Yet he knew that if like the day before yesterday when he watched the reprisal punishment of the ten _he _had his uncle's Eggbots select from the prison population, he knew for a sympathetic fact he'd shut down the coming eradication of the camp.

And so with this knowledge of his own moralities ever tugging at the evil, sinister side of him, and one who was going to need in the coming days of his Uncle's _approaching_ demise–_"After the Acorn's and Sonic's!"_ –Snively began shutting down his machines. He could have started with the regular shut-down sequences first, but for his day's efforts...he needed to erase them. By chance he did have the encryption program on lone disk, one always handy to have around, however, everything else didn't needed to be traced, or mysteriously found. This chance went away when the icon for the Com-Bot program's termination popped up on his screen, asking if it was _OK_ to delete. His finger never flinched in hesitation–he just slammed it on the black button that read _ENTER_. With this done, the green line of progress running length wise toward the right side of the screen, Snively ran the shutdown program for the main monitor over head, finding his eyes as he did watching the screen fade to black, staring at a spot over the southwestern edge of the badlands, wondering if that was where his bots were.

Then came to his own machine. He didn't even turn the monitor off. He didn't scroll down to the shutdown sequence. Nope, in his haste to get down to his uncle before the obese man screamed his name out for no particular reason, Snively just reached down with his index finger and pushed in the power-up button, turning himself in his swivel chair once the internal fan died to jut towards the door. And in this instant when his computer was processing the manual shut-down sequence, a tickle of a thought made him laugh. _"Hmm, maybe I should dine with my uncle tonight? See him off before tomorrow morning's arrival. Hey, I could at least be able to remember him a good note and not a sour one."_ A smile tugged to the edges of his mouth. The short man was indeed having a beautiful party in his head with coming implications of his plan. His nasally voice inside his head was laughing the whole second.

And in that split second when the computer was shutting down, when his nerve impulses commanded his muscles in his legs to make him rise from his chair, a small message had started to transcribed itself on the small monitor at his back. In fact the message was so small it didn't even give a glow for it didn't have time to complete itself before the screen lost its electrical connection to Snively's computer. But if it's operator wouldn't have been so eager to leave, the small notation would've at least raised what little follicles of hair he had left on his balloon shaped head:

_INTERCEPTED MESs_

* * *

Julie-Su swore her legs were ordered replacements from the Dark Legion because she never thought they could propel her so fast through Central Knothole. Sally's rallying cry was like the shot to set her in motion. But her aligning strength in her legs, plus the absorbing burn in her thighs told her that her all but one of her limbs were fur, flesh, muscle and bone. Her cybernetic arm was it, pumping just as fast as her true arm in her dash towards her and Knuckles' temporary home. The current residence of the Choatix!

Crossing into the south portion of the city into the outlaying huts, she breezed by the spot Aleutian and Shadow had their little soiree of boiling egos, then ran between two round huts, darting to the right of one, kicked herself into overdrive past the spot Aleutian saved her butt and killing Blackjack just to do it, and with her dreads beating the nape of her neck and her restless shoulders, she spotted the entrance to her hut. She never let off the steam in her legs, her love and goals jolting more oxygen to feed her working muscles to the brink of aching.

The closed door almost didn't stand a chance if her left hand hadn't slowed her impact.

Strangling the knob as she twisted it, Julie-Su kicked the bottom of the door that flung it open. Her hand was still on the door knob when she saw the spooked faces of Vector, Mighty, Ray and Charmy strike away from the TV set.

"Lets go!" came her forced shout.

"Where!?" harped Vector, the controller rolling in his hand.

Julie willed herself from the door and marched quickly to the TV. She nearly pounded the game consol's construction to the center of the world when she hit the kill switch. When the desired sound of static ripped through the air from the TV, Julie was already speaking. "I'll tell you all on the way to the airbase. We're taking the _Mark Two_ and she's burning fuel on the ramp." All she got was stunned faces in return.

"Is it Knuckles?" Mighty asked after a quick moment.

"It's worse, now c'mon! We gotta move if we've any chance for survivors!"

And those words were the call to arms. Vector shot up from his spot on the couch and did a total one-eighty around it to avoid trampling on Ray, who was setting between the couch and a coffee table that doubled well for pop-corn, suds, and a remote control holder.

Mighty flung himself up as well, launching towards the rear of the hut with Vector, and now Charmey before stopping dead in his tracks. _"Yea, that's right. I don't need to grab anything,"_ he reminded himself like a guilty confession. Instead, he turned around and went for the table at the foot of the couch and went to work stuffing as much soda and popcorn his mouth could hold.

Ray was almost laughing when Julie-Su's voice called him out. The soldier tone was very evident in her. "Ray, you're flying right seat with me!"

"What!?" shot back his child voice. "Why right when I can do it all the way?"

"Because I'm the one who's got to do the reentry into Mobius!"

Julie-Su watched hurtfully as Ray's sudden change in expression shifted to one feeling unimportant. She thought to change with the real work that was ahead of him, but she also realized she might not want to feed him with a surge of ego. _"Just wait, Ray. I don't need you to be all hyped up yet."_

Vector jogged back into the room, Charmey in tow adjusting his goggles Julie figured he had to go snag along with his loving wife, Saffron, clinging to his arm. Julie couldn't understand why Saffron always wore a dress or a gown of some kind pretty much every waking day. But from what she saw of Charmey, and ultimately knowing the Bee Prince's linage, his wife's pink, satin gown was a welcoming sendoff attire.

"Got your tunes?" Julie-Su asked Vector snidely as the crocodile past her towards the door.

"Can't leave Knothole without 'em, toots!"

She almost tripped him when he waltzed by her, but he was going to need the head start once they caught up to him. But as for her, Julie was asking herself if she was forgetting anything. The _Mark Two_ had all the necessary components for their unplanned mission. So then what beckoned her to rush toward her and Knuckles' room. When she reached it, she wondered what had made her tug at the door knob to mack sure it was locked when she arrived to it? Her face drifted to the bottom of the door, taking her sigh with her gaze. _"Okay, Knux! Your brother's monster is still locked up."_ With this inner affirmation, her reposed face returned to its expressionless glower of purpose and set agenda.

Hurriedly jaunting to the main door, she caught Mighty waiting for her outside with Charmey and Saffron kissing each other good bye. The armadillo looked embarrassed in the presents of the show of affection in front of Aurora and everybody.

Julie relieved him of this cheek shifting moment Mighty was putting himself through. Grabbing Charmey by his right arm, Julie pulled him away from his lovely wife. "C'mon, lover boy. She'll be here when you get back."

Saffron's protest was surprisingly light hearted as she watched the pink echidna taking her prince away with a rigid march and run. "Oh, Julie! What about me? Will I see him again?"

Julie didn't know if her voice had made back to Saffron but she had to reply. "He isn't doing anything too dangerous." Then before she turned her attention towards Charmey and Mighty, who was now trying to keep up them, she thought of something for Saffron could do to pass the foreboding time. "Hey, just tidy up the place from the pigs we live with, please!?"

She saw the wave from Saffron, but she saw the testy look Mighty was giving her. "Pigs?"

Julie didn't retort. Her mind was back on the mission. "Where's Ray?"

"Ahead of us. Told him to meet us there while Chamey and Saffron said their farewells."

The male bee gave Mighty a shrewd gaze. "Mighty," he growled with teeth clinching.

"Both of you can it," barked Julie, releasing Charmey when she felt him running under his own power. They were just about to launch themselves between the two huts she'd had rounded a few minutes before.

"So what's going on, Su?" asked Mighty, his breathing becoming labored.

"It's the _Hawking_," Julie announced, her own teeth gritting. She didn't have to look to know Mighty's face had possibly turned dire from the trivial.

She was right. "Okay, you got my attention."

Julie cleared her throat as all three cleared the two huts and sprinted on the small field. "Nicole picked up a distress signal as Knuckles was calling for help."

"So he's okay?" Mighty asked brightly.

"Yes and no, Mighty. He and Sonic are going to bust some Mobians out from one of Eggman's prison camps."

Mighty stole a glance to her with a weary smile. "I hope it goes better than what we tried back on Angel Island."

And Julie hoped so as well. There was no telling how many of her kind, plus countless others were imprisoned in Eggman's Egg-Grapes. The thought of them being sucked dry of their life, helpless in the defense of the pain, to power his machines and city hollowed out her nerves and left her cold.

"_Don't dwell on them."_

"The _Hawking_ was sunk, Mighty."

Her trembled words on her pitched run struck the armadillo's heart before reason could infect it. "I take it we're going to check for survivors instead of helping Knux?"

A shallow nod under a solidified face. "Yeah."

Then slightly narrow tone from the Armidillo running hard beside her came as a huge surprise. "This isn't because the captain is a former compatriot is it?"

The bold question about put every muscle to a halt at Julie-Su's expense. But her discipline held as the opening that marked the entrance to Knothole's central loomed closer. "Our people were on that ship, Mighty," she paretically spat out. "Remember, Knuckles had told this Captain Stenson where Albion was. Told him to get the refugees's there?" She watched Mighty nod in the corner of eye. Glancing right, she saw Charmey was jumping up from the ground and flapping his wings to flight instead of running to keep up. "They may not have made it, Mighty," she continued, but her tone was shallower. "Any survivor is better for us, and better than nothing."

This time is was Charmey's high voice coming from her flanks. "And Knux?"

The shade of Knothole's canopy was a welcome reprieve from the pressing early-evening sun. Enough to mend Julie-Su's already weighing mind. "Rotor and Hershey are going after them."

Casting a look to either side of her, there was some comfort but hardly enough to quell her aghast feelings when she descried Mighty and Charmey's relieved faces.

"He can do it, Julie," Mighty said breathlessly, his eyes now straight ahead. "Knuckles can do it–so let's get us some survivor's, eh!"

"Yeah!" she growled energized. And yes she was right...Vector had slowed. She could see his green skin past an overly large trunk of downtown Knothole.

* * *

"Set, Luv?"

Hershey's chocolate eyes found Geoffrey's with a strained turn of her head over her right shoulder. Just from the way he asked her, a tone filled with apprehension that sparked a knowing worry between them, brought on her troubled stare to him. Asking him if he could go through with this; her going on mission on her own for once. But it wasn't like it was some sort of _coup de grace_ to a final battle where everything was give and take all or parish. It was a simple prison camp break. Like the many she and her loving husband for four months and going strong have orchestrated, and sometimes planed on the fly–including their own that in the end united them through vowels while facing down blasters from the witnessing Shadow SWATbots.

So why did he tug at her large, green turtleneck jacket? Why did his eyes now stray from her's with a gleam of guilt toward her tail?

"Where're goggles, luv?" he asked, his eyes lifting back to hers, but with more of a professional aura behind them and not the worried husband.

She didn't answer at first, but when she did, she sounded to herself far away. "Left pocket, Geoff."

Turning her around like a tailor to a manikin on a store window, Geoffrey fished his right hand into her pocket, retrieving her clear, operator goggles that they made a habit to wear on their missions. He eyed them for her, looking for any smudge or speck that could make her construe a far off enemy while in fact she was chasing dirt. Pulling the elastic band, Geoff slide her uni-goggle over her ears and around her eyes.

Hershey reached up and took both his hands with hers and squeezed them. "Geoff, don't worry. It's just a run around the corner to get some misplaced people."

Looking past her for just a brief second, the commander watched one of his troopers climb the ramp into the tail of the _Turbo-Lifter_, taking note of the beaver's stride up the large box transport with a calm pace and an old, black blaster rifle slung over his shoulder, barrel down. "It may not be as simple as that, dear," he finally said in a warning tone. "Something's up, and this old rebel commander can smell a trap better than anyone."

"Is this why you're like this?" she asked coyly.

Before she could see him answer, Geoffrey turned her around at the shoulders again, making her face the _Turbo-Lifter_. "It's that I'm not going with you, luv." She heard him sigh at the end, feeling him, again, tugging at the her back. "Your blaster is set," he observed. "Are your spare energy-cells at the ready."

Hershey tugged at her belt where she carried her spare munitions for the blaster pistol mounted on her back, along with other gadgets. "All here, sweetie."

And what seemed like the last time he was going to do so, Geoffrey grabbed her right shoulder once more and spun her around to him, taking her by his hands...and kissing her straight on the lips.

"Commander!"

Sally's voice didn't budge Geoffrey from Hershey, still holding their farewell kiss until the Princess's footsteps drew both of their attentions to her. "Commander, Doc's on his way. I've got Amy brining him here."

Holding their pose for a while longer, both St. John's swivelled their heads to Sally. "And Julie-Su and the Choatix?" Geoffrey asked, holding onto Hershey's hands tightly.

"On their way," said Sally. "How's the_ Turbo-Lifter_?"

"Rotor's getting _her_ ready." But thus far, no whine from the twin turbine engines mounted on each large wing. With this thought Geoffrey turned his head to the _Turbo-Lifter_. Not satisfied–nor will he be until this is all over–he cast his loving eyes to Hershey's and said dryly, like he was a spy in an old black-and-white movie seeing a female spy off at the airport, "Well, this it, luv. I'll see 'ya when you land in one piece."

"Sure will, darling," Hershey purred like a whisper in the night before patting her husband on the lips and then scurrying away towards the ramp of the large, twin engine transport.

It wasn't until Sally watched Hershey almost at a run disappear up the ramp that she eased herself alongside Geoffrey. For a time past, Geoffrey was infatuated with her, deeming himself her consort while he was busy undermining the first Robotnick and chastising a certain blue hedgehog every chance he could get. It was amazing what two years could do; the Commander married to someone no one thought would add more to Geoffrey's life. And Sally alone while her heart didn't know what to do with Sonic, other than get him back.

A sigh from her broke her train of thought and eased a switch to another:

"Espio reported in about a few minutes ago."

A course sound of hydraulic motors followed with an electric groan filled the forest canopy that covered King Frederick Airbase. Then came a turbine fan's legendary whine.

Through all this Sally watched Geoffrey fold his arms over his chest, his eyes never leaving the starting transport. "Where are they?" was all he asked.

"He said they're getting close–" _"And I think it might involve killing Shadow,"_ she didn't add to the now raging air of sound. "When he messaged us, he reported they were crossing into the Badlands."

Geoffrey's reply came as a shout, drifting his head closer to the Princess's; his mind roving that Rotor was charging up the last engine. "I imagine they've got half an hour to go!?"

"Plus the walk. Espio said it was getting dark from passing the time zones and Shadow was starting to cool down a bit!"

A jolting laugh from Geoffrey sparked Sally's head to roll around. "He's being too kind, that Chameleon! I'm surprised he hasn't thrown him off the boogie yet."

The out of breath but speeding by voice of Vector got both Princess and Commander to turn their heads inward to the space between them to the see the first Choatic to pass them, shouting, "Hey Geoff–Hey Sal!"

Then came Ray's yellow furred-self, waving with a childish grin all the time his body was pointed directly towards the _Freedom Fighter Mark Two_.

"Where've you all been?" decried Geoffrey, raising his voice more when the _Turbo-Lifter's_ engines were run-up. Burnt kerosene spliced the fresh-air of the forest, while the harsh whine was drowning out almost everything within speaking range. Enough so that he didn't hear Julie-Su walk up beside him and Sally. Almost didn't hear when she began to shout:

"Where's the doc?"

Aside from being jostled with surprise and collapsing his arms down to his side, Geoffrey was about as equally afraid from seeing the scathing pink echidna in front of him now. How Knuckles could calm this estrogen filled female body with lots of attitude was beyond him. Hershey was sometimes trouble enough.

"Amy's getting him!" replied Sally in the Commander's aback stead. "Probably getting everything ready when you all return."

"Well, he could hurry it up!" shouted Julie-Su over the ranging engines. She watched what seemed hopelessly as St. John rolled his eyes, refolded his arms and glared towards the _Turbo-Lifter_.

"Give him time, Julie," Sally replied calmly in her pitched voice.

And for awhile it seemed to cool the echidna. In fact it was the _Turbo-Lifter_ that had almost everyone's attention even while Charmey flew past them to the awaiting _Freedom Fighter Mark II_ towards the very rear of the runway, where it was always on stand-by for an emergency scramble mission. The _Lifter_ labored slowly to the left, its right engine whining louder than the left to push it through its taxing turn. Like a ballet dancer with many talents, Julie watched with a embolden, deadpan face as the loading ramp began to raise, closing off the inside of the winged transport, making the tail a flush like a closed mouth of a shark. Then came the jet-wash, making all three turn away as the hot, course smelling wind fluttered through their fur, knocking Julie-Su's dreads around in the onslaught, and flapping Sally's vest around her body.

Geoffrey however was holding onto his beret as he spoke into Julie's triangle ear past her dreads. "Better get the engine running and get going before Bunnie has a change of mind and becomes a stowaway."

Julie nodded her head from St. John's commanding, English voice. "Where is she?"

"With Elias...hopefully the sire is finding something to keep her entertained. Maybe might have Meg's hair dons while you all are gone."

A flash of King Elias' squirrel wife flashed through Julie's mind before a curt nod in agreement sent it away, and her towards the _Mark Two_. She could see Ray through the cockpit window as she hurriedly strode up to the ship's ramp. To her, the _Mark Two_ always reminded her of her past calling with the Legion; aggressiveness in its design. The day Rotor took the thing out for a test flight almost scared her when the _Freedom Fighter_ flew over Knothole, frightened that the Legion had switched sides and where rolling in the hurt. But no, it was their newest addition to the fight. Something Knuckles had deemed a bad replacement for Sonic when all thought the hedgehog was dead. Swept forward wings accompanied the narrow and slim nose and fuselage design of the hemisphere-hopper, straddling the stratosphere to achieve the best and quickest distance flight, making Sonic sometimes jealous.

Passing the nose landing gear, Julie stopped before stepping onto the lowered ramp and looked back. Her eyes shot wide open in relief.

"Finally!" she shouted when the white coat–and feathered–Doctor Quack approached her, Amy in tow with her Pico-Pico hammer. Their delay was apparent from the eye-patched duck's shortness of breath and the black doctor's bag he held in his right hand. "Got everything?"

"All set, milady," breathed out Quack. "The staff will be awaiting us in the backup care-center." Which Julie remembered it was on the north end in the city. "Once Amy told me it was the _Hawking_," Quack continued, starting him and Julie up the ramp, "I knew where I was going." His eyes narrowed with direness and question. "Any word of survivors?"

"None," replied Julie almost too evenly.

"Well," came Amy's harping voice brightly, "one way we're going to find out is if we start scootin–"

"Who says, _we_?" Julie-Su gazed on scoldingly.

The pink furred hedgehog's uni-brow rose in anger and disdain of where this was going. Even her hammer lifted from the concrete floor. "Hey!" she screamed, "I'm just as part of the Freedom Fighters as anyone."

"That's correct, Amy," put in the good Doctor like he would to a stubborn patient, "all the more reason you need to stay."

With her striking head going back and forth between the duck and the echidna, she protested, "C'mon, Su. I've been training with you, and you know I can help."

"Not this one, girl."

"But!"

Julie placed her cybernetic gloved hand on Army's shoulder, making sure she made her squeeze one of comfort. "No _buts_, girl. Look at it like this–Bunnie is staying because she might be needed, and I'm not going to help rescue my Knuckles."

"And all this means?" Amy said, crossing her arms and tapping her shoe.

"It means we all have to give or take for what is needed."

Quack stepped in. "Like wise, Amy. I really need to go with Hershey and Rotor to care for any injured or sick they might get tossed with, but..." he swallowed just to clear his throat from the abundance of exhaust from the _Lifter_, "but the _Hawking_ is more of a priority with me since I took care of a few refugee's on there."

"In which case," Julie nuzzled in, "you need to stay in case we need the room." And what she didn't add that was the real excuse was she didn't want to expose this young hedgehog to the aftermath of sheer brutality.

But then there was Ray.

"Hey!"

Julie almost cringed when she heard Vector's brittled, low voice shout to her. Looking over her shoulder, not only did she see the all-too-cool-for-anything crocodile standing at the edge of the ramp on the inside of the _Mark Two_, but Mighty was there waiting beside him, both in a pose of impatient.

"C'mon, daylights burning!" decried Mighty.

And it seemed on cue that Ray began the engine start sequence to the main thruster. The groan and whine was a bit more throaty than the _Lifter_, but all the more pitched in frequence and decibels. Shuffling her head from the new urgency growing with every raised raging whine, Julie looked to Amy and said with a raised voice of her own, "Go to Sally, Amy. Please. We need to get going!"

It felt as if Amy's slipping away from Julie's hand was like the echidna had lost a friend who never was, and who will never be. Julie swore the hedgehog's walk away from them was more like a sulk than a determined stride up to Sally, wondering if she was going to address the Princess like she was her mother and pout her way into the _Mark Two_. In due course of seeing this, however, it was Quack's gentle hand on _her_ shoulder that brought her back to the main objective of everything.

"Let's go before she barters her way in," he said thoughtfully. From his gaze at Julie, somehow she could see what the Doc knew what laid ahead for him.

A fast turn and a rush up the ramp, Mighty awaiting them at the controls to raise it when both echidna and duck reached the top. Even under the idle of the lone engine she could her the actuators powering the lifting mechanism. And before long, the outside air was closed to the pressurized cabin and the daylight forced out like slowly sealing a metal can from the inside.

Rustling her way between the seats that made up the passenger part of the cabin, Julie-Su made sure she _thumped_ at Vector's seat while he was working to put his web harness on.

"Hey, toots!"

"Hey what, just making sure you're not dead from boredom," she sauntered back at him, making her way to the cockpit seats, which weren't separated at all from a cabin wall–and meant she could hear every barb from Vector the whole way there. Collapsing in the left seat she vividly remembered Aleutian sitting in on their jolting trip back from Angel Island, where she got to see Sally panic for once, and really started to wonder about Knuckles' depressed, self-proclaimed brother whether he was about to kill them all–and _Tails_ listening and acting on his instructions. Julie worked her arms through the chest harnesses, snapped them, and began gliding her fingers roughly across the panel, activating screens, radar and locating systems.

"Engine is running normally, Su," announced Ray over the revving thruster.

Looking over to the yellow flying squirrel, Julie only nodded before returning her attention to the window. The _Turbo-Lifter _was about to do its runup on the runway and just as quick, launching itself up the towering boost-ramp at the end of the gaping forest canopy. "Begin runup. Boost all power when the transport is off."

"Roger, Julie," said Ray excitedly. Turning his head back he shouted, "Everyone strapped in!?"

Thumbs up came from Mighty and Charmey while Quack gave out a very eager smile. As for Vector:

"C'mon, push them slow pokes outta 'da way!"

And with that quip and barb, Julie asked, "Weapons?"

"Charging," replied Ray.

Dark, streaming smoke began to escape rapidly from the wing mounted turbine engines of the _Turbo-Lifter_. The jet wash seemed to shake the cockpit window as the noise pelted the structure of the _Mark Two_. And like a lumbering oversized goose who ate way too much, the _Lifter_ labored forward before Rotor nailed the underbelly mounted Jatos–looking like eight tubes to either side of the landing gear pushing fire out the nozzles–for assistance up the ramp.

Next, it was the Choatix turn...and Ray was already thumbing for the afterburners while pressing the throttle bar between him and Julie-Su forward.

* * *

"What is that coming out of Knothole?" Merlin's clear voice chimed from over Tails' shoulder.

Amadeus cast an eye out the cockpit as his light nap was broken from Merlin's call. From the fog of his vision and weary mind, he descried a faint smudge rising sharply from the forest canopy, suddenly leveling before banking briskly to the west on its northern direction. Blinking his eyes further, he could see it was a large transport, its twin engines pushing black smoke in its wake. "One of ours I hope," Amadeus Prower announced in his now alert, groggy voice.

"It's the _Turbo-Lifter_, dad. Sally's parachute plane when she had the cool idea to do drop-in raids during the first war. The wolf packed helped with–"

"Sorry to cut you off nephew," Merlin interjected easily, "but don't you think that's pretty fast of a climb to tell _you_ something is up?"

Without further instructions with a coordinated use of words, Tails drifted his right hand from the control yoke and began to operate the com-link just to the right a monitor that showed a good quantity of digital flight gauges. Once he typed in the sequence for the secure channel, and soon hearing the electronic _buzz_ of the other end receiving the hail, the monitor went blank, throwing the flight display to an overhead monitor just above the cockpit screen.

Seconds seemed to tick by before Sir Charles Hedgehog's crusty face lite up the monitor in front of Tails. _"Knothole. General Prower, is that you?"_

Amadeus searched for the monitor's camera; almost laughing when his son pointed the thing out to him just above the screen. "Charles, it's General Prower. What's going on with the–"

"_Sir, please accept my apology when I say, where have you all been!?"_ Charles thrusting voice almost made Amadeus spill back into his chair and Tails' smooth ride into a bumpy venture. _"Sally and Elias where beginning to wonder if this cipher we've been trying to crack had you all mixed up in it. It's bad enough we thought my nephew was snagged by it and leading us all into a trap."_

"Charles," Amadeus eased with a puzzled voice, "stop and back-up and explain what's been going on. Look, I'm sorry we haven't done a com-link with you, but Elias' mission about Aleutian took us close to Old Mobotropolis, and dangerously close to Eggman."

Charles' voice came back with understanding, _"I understand, Amadeus...okay, brace yourself, you're not going to like this, old friend. My nephew, along with Knuckles and Royal Guardsmen Antoine snuck themselves into a prison camp."_

"What!?" came Amadeus' rocketing voice. "I thought I told them to take pictures and come back so we can conceive a plan of action and give time for Eggman's messages to solidify so he doesn't."

Tails could see Charles' head shake on the monitor. _"I'm sorry, General, but I'm siding with my nephew from what Knuckles reported."_ A pause from the other end, bringing Amadeus closer to the monitor. _"Knuckles says the camp is supposed to be executed _today_!"_

There was no moment for reflection, or to device a course of action; Amadeus just came flat out with it. "Who're you sending?"

"_Rotor, Hershey and a hand full of St. John's troopers."_

"So this leaves the Choatix–"

A shattering rumble came from the outside through the walls of the Hoverbot. For Tails, seeing the _Mark Two_ shooting up from the foliage was a weird, alien sight to him. It looked like an arrow shooting backwards with a large blue, white flame coming from the tip, propelling it up to the heavens. The sharp climb was still breathtaking; even from his vantage point, skimming the treetops. And when he thought the flare of the engine couldn't get any hotter, whoever was at the controls switched on the booster-drive and the jutting flame grew brighter in color and in length. Tails swore gravity had disconnected Her fingers from the _Mark Two_ just by the sheer speed it was now traveling under at in the race to the clouds. The Hoverbot rattled from the ignition of the booster, Tails holding steady as he traced the blue flame and silver ship to the outer reaches of the sky, curving almost on its back.

"_Okay, as for the Mark Two,"_ Charles pipped in from the com-link, figuring the reason for Amadeus' was well on its way. _"Nicole picked out a distress signal from the _Hawking_."_

"Okay?" Amadeus asked very wearily.

"_Julie-Su is taking the Chaotix to check for survivors._"

Amadeus slammed his right fist against the hull to the side of him. "Charles, are my instructions not clear. We've now successfully left–"

"Dad!" Tails interrupted nervously. "Eggman's probably listening in."

Amadeus could feel the cold shiver trickle over every fiber of fur on his skin. It left him almost bleak with knowledge. Yet inside, he was churning. _"When is the King going to listen to me? After all, he's wanting my advisement on things I've learned from my time in space and could help the Kingdom." _But he had remind himself; he was a new comer to this war. He was still learning about his _son's_ way of fighting Amadeus' new enemy.

"Well, at least the Guardian is taking charge," he fished from the back of his mind.

However, Tails grumble along with Merlin's raised brow said different.

"Do you know Knuckles at all, dear Brother?" Merlin asked very pensively.

A wandering gaze caught his son's and Merlin's. "Why, he's a Guardian. They're responsible right? He can lead Sonic around...right?"

Tails answer was him rising from his chair and snapping two switches on the overhead control panel. A low hum started to resinate through the interior of the Hoverbot.

"Well?" Amadeus quizzed as he watched his son slid back down in the chair before taking his free hand and placing his belts over his chest.

"Dad," Tails began under his labor, "you weren't here for the first war."

"Yes, I know, but–"

"Dad," Tails said very sheepishly, worried nonetheless. "Dad, Sonic and Knuckles used to hate each other during the first war."

With this, Amadeus collapsed further in his chair, forgetting that Charles was still on the monitor.

"_As I remember Locke saying,"_ came Charles' voice. _"'My son has a bit of a hot head.'"_

"Just great!" barked Amadeus through his new frustrations. "Charles, will be down there in a second, and we'll talk this over."

"_Umm, better ask your son first, General. Your Hoverbot just powered up its weapons...Knothole out...happy hunting."_

Amadeus snapped his head to Miles, but found he didn't have to work hard to do it. Tails had banked the Hoverbot to the left and began a hard climb, the hum above him was starting to level in range and pitch, and the added G's were helping his fears sink in better. He was about to speak until he saw Merlin settling himself in his seat, clicking the seat-straps across his robe before clasping his hands in for what looked like an old fox ready to enjoy a nice flight.

"Brother," Amadeus squinted, "don't encourage him."

"Dad," said Tails impassively, "Sonic is in trouble. He's trying to save a bunch more Mobians, and its something I've always tried helped him with. It's what we do."

Amadeus studied his son's back, his twin tails poking out from either side of the seat.

Then Merlin's voice keyed into the hull. "Strap in brother. You're about to get you first dose of combat in the new war."

Finding the straps behind his back, Amadeus settled in himself, hearing the throttling Hoverbot engine calling on the distant soldier in his soul to come alive...for this time he was marching into war under his son's power.

* * *

It seems when I do my edits, the chapter becomes funner. How did my plan on words with Lemeans, Leo and Henry come out? I do hope you all got it. I also have to make a screaming apology for introducing a bunch of new character's into this so fast, but you have to understand, in my defense, that this is the first time I placed Lemeans in the center of the narrative (or you in his eyes--then shifting off to either Leo or Henry)

Also, how was Snively's scene?

And how was the scene with Chuck, and really with Elias, since we hardly ever see him? (AND I MENTIONED HIS WIFE AND CHILD!) I tried to give equal "poetic" description to the main character's as my OCs. Gained this insight from taking the Mary-Sue litmus test. (BTW; Aleutian scored a high 30, and Lopper was a whopping 4! More to come! The lower the score, the better) And lastly, the leading up with Julie-Su, then St. John and Hershey, and finally to the Prowers? Believable? Riveting? Again, I do hope so...the few people who've read the next chapter didn't want to stop...and were left drained from the few scenes.

All Sonic fans will be rejoicing--even though this is a Knuckles fan-fiction story.


	34. The Great Mobian Plains Breakup

Hello everyone, and for good majority of us, welcome back. And yes, this means me too.

Sorry for the long delay in updating but work and stress of work have kept me from my humble home for two months and my writing for equally long. I've only modified one sentence and formulated another in my wanderings across these United States. I do, however, feel my head coming back to grips with myself and am looking to finish this whole project while I'm off the road.

To this chapter; not one of my better titles, but I hope one of my good chapters in terms of action. Warning to some, graphic detail if your minds can construed it, warning for others, it's a little long, but my dear editor tells me it seemed to go by fast (possibly to fast: yikes!) My only fear is is that I haven't made the small things fit, or I've forgotten a few key things from previous chapters and didn't place the consequence in this. Do search and destroy and tell me so. Helps me greatly.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the original creators of the characters presented here except those of my own.

Please review and, again, tell me how I'm doing. Every little bit helps.

* * *

**The Great Mobian Plains Breakup**

By: Mauser

_TONGK!_

Rotation of the head; servos to move torso toward the ground; a pebble still rolling near its feet on the arid, tan soil.

For the computer processing until inside the round bulk of the Eggbot, its base coat a tundra green while giving contour to its shape was a light shade of yellow, to calculate the origin of the small rock that careened and struck its ever smiling head could have seemed very simple if it'd been observing its sensory system a fraction better. Actuating its servos in its hips to move its legs, the bot turned to the left slightly, scanning the three huts somewhat in front of it. Cutting the nearest hut at the southwestern corner with its body, it flipped a few different imaging programs through its ocular sensors and began to–

Green eyes; juvenile. That was all the Eggbot with its mighty mean looking plasma launcher could discern before he saw this mischievous looking bobcat taking aim around the hut with his crude, pre-technology weapon and–

_TONGK!_

"YOU, FUR-BALL! COME HERE!" instantly shouted the Eggbot in what it could compute as the proper voice and meanness to establish its authority.

It took two steps to put action to words. But it was in two steps that the little bobcat found a pebble behind the hut where he was taking cover around, placed it in the middle of the large, and stiff rubber band, and let the substance spring forward to reform its stretched self.

_TONGK!_

This time the rock impacted its metal, round hulk. Pure to its programmed directive, the Eggbot charged itself further towards the kid, its plasma launcher leveling but not powering up. There was a program formulating for the juvenile's punishment.

In four steps the bot witnessed the little _brat,_ that its system reasoned was the right term for the misfit, stick his tongue out at it. Another infraction; another program for punishment. The Eggbot surmised its lard creator would possibly watch the whole ordeal...actually the child's ordeal in the end. Its program was to look for such abnormal mannerisms, especially in the young ones. Let the Eggman's worship of _Gears_ forbid this little fur ball turns out to be another pestilent Sonic. And on cue it seemed, at a four foot interval between the bot and the corner of the wall, the bobcat misfit disappeared in a dash around the hut.

"IT WOULD BE BEST IF YOU REJOIN–" Holding a pause, the bot rounded the corner before giving its last command–

And before its CPU was ultimately shut down, what its fixed ocular sensors saw as its finger tried to work the trigger mechanism to its bulky, round plasma launcher tube was a red echidna, his face coursing with anger and strain, his purple irises looking as if he was about to enjoy his actions, and a large white fist...with two spiked knuckles jutting towards–

* * *

The Guardian's hand slammed with a fierce raking motion across the Eggbots rotating head. A loud metal _THUD_ echoed through Knuckles' hand, joints, and bones while feeling the meat of his fingers exhume a comforting pain of driving his hand inside the hulk of the bot. Pulling his right fist back, he along with Sonic, who was plastered against the hut wall, watched the bot crumble as the lack of information couldn't power its hydraulics to keep itself up. Another _THUD_ on the ground and a long sigh came from Mikhail just beside Sonic.

"Well, well, one down, two fists full to go," came the heavy Slavic voice of the beagle.

A voice from between Sonic and the Guardian made both kneel down in a fury to shut him up. "Hey, that was..._emph_!"

Sonic got the kid's mouth with his hand first. "Dex, little tike, 'ya need to be quiet." Glancing up to Mikhail, Sonic gave an encouraging smile, "We got your play toy."

"_Da_, and my biggest thanks. Now let me see how I work this thing.""What!" hissed Christian from Mikhail's left. Looking over his left shoulder in dismay he swore Leo's fur was going to turn pure white. If not him, then Antoine's. "I thought you said you knew how to use this?" he managed to breath after gathering the shared consensus beside him.

"_Da_! Point-n-click, but its power procedure–it different."

"Oh, moi," sweated Antoine from beside Leo.

Knuckles piercingly rolled his eyes and had them fall on Christian. "You were trained on something like this, right?"

"Some," Christian admitted with a nervous tone. Stepping forward and away from Leo, he grabbed Mikhail and cautiously strode past the blue blur before picking up the large, brown tube. At first he felt a spell of being insignificance cast upon him when he studied the red, green and blue buttons on the side of the trigger housing–not to mention the fear of being caught in the great open expansion of the south area. But a training class in Legion weaponry did creep into his mind, voice for his finger to press the largest, rectangular button just above the trigger housing. A harsh wine screamed to life, and so did the plasma launcher.

"Problem one–no problemo," Sonic said, very cocky. "Now what about that kitty-cat with the sulky vibe?"

Leo did his best to be silent as he stepped towards Sonic. "I'll let him now we're ready."

"Yeah, but what about the starting shot?" Knuckles asked in a harsh whisper.

"The roving guards won't pass by here in another minute, but I'm sure, along with Lemeans, that they will be ordered to search for hiders and roamers...like us."

"Great," snarled Knuckles, "more speculations. What about behind us?"

Leo just shrugged defensively. Then he turned around and with a spring in his step, and large feet, pushed away from the six.

"Whatz about moi?" harped Antoine. "I don't have a weapon."

Christian turned to the coyote in the shredded blue uniform blazer in almost dismay. "C'mon, soldier...like what we're doing now. Get one of their weapons and start fighting!"

A raise of shoulders in Antoine's defense, but pure sarcasm from Sonic. "Hey, give him a break, he can't lift one of those chopping swords."

"I can, too," cried out Antoine now in his own defense.

"They heavy, friend," said Mikhail thoughtfully, all the while peaking around the corner with his droopy ears clinging to the wall, the launcher pointed up from its balancing act on his black boot.

"Sonic," Antoine began in a sneer, "you get my saber you told me to leave–"

Sonic waved both hands at Antoine's chest. "Whoa–whoa dude, when I can."

"Yea," added Knuckles, "this isn't going to be a cake walk from here on out. Just help me bash some of them and get the prisoners out, okay 'Ant?"

A hard affirming nod came from the coyote. "_Oui_!"

"Great, 'Twan," whispered Sonic, "now prove to Bunnie that you're a fighter like us."

Antoine smiled from Sonic's boisterous remark. He will!

As for Knuckles, he eyed Mikhail's back behind him and lined himself against the wall. He let an eye stray from the corner of the wall, peering out slightly to see if the bot patrolling the front gate was passing in-between the double fence line. Nope, and with an affirming smug grin he looked to the east. All quiet expect the rousing noises to the rear. And it wasn't Sonic, Twan, or the squabbling dog and former EST officer. There wasn't even a notion of wind.

"_But that's gonna change very soon,"_

A long casting eye fell on a certain blue hedgehog. "Hey Sonic..."

* * *

How the white envelope could drown out the clattering of metal plates being mauled with spoons and forks, Lemeans could only stare and wonder just for a brief instant until the real drawing of his attention filtered back into his mind. He held it like an unopened letter from a girl long ago he'd used to love, used to depend on until her very untimely, gruesome death, studding the small five by four inch envelope as he rested his back against the northwestern most hut. How long had he'd been looking at it, and why was he so bold to do so in the openness where the strength of the bots had just multiplied?

"_Life, Cane...Life,"_ he whispered softly to himself. The message hidden inside the envelope was life...life that needed to be warned.

A shadow crept over him, sparking his mind back to the flat arid landscape and up to the approaching figure.

"Twenty-six gallons, Lemeans," smiled the green hawk acting like a halo over him.

"That's all?" inquired the leopard worriedly. But deep down, there was a gripping fright strangling him.

A taller shadow passed over him, Lemeans only seeing the ears of Leo coming around Henry's back. "Make it twenty-five," the hare said quietly.

Lemeans could see Henry's mind racing, and his was too. The gathered conclusion in their gazes: it could all go down in the next microsecond. "Well, then," Lemeans gestured with a wave of his left hand, pocketing his envelop in his left breast pocket with his other, "why don't you help this old beaten cat up and gather our people for a story. A nice meal is deserving," he chorused grandly.

Leo came to his left side, helping him up with his cane while Henry steadied the old leopard.

It wasn't until he was halfway to his feet when an Eggbot from the line shouted to the mostly sitting crowd. "EVERYONE STAND...PLEASE."

Lemeans' face raced over to Leo's, descrying an aghast look that he was sure was mutual between them. They both had never heard the bots say something polite inside the camp. Ever! Their orders _had_ always been filled with disdain, distrust, and insults. Now it was kindness.

"_Kill them with _kindness_."_ came a remarked that slithered into Lemean's head.

"PLEASE, GATHER YOURSELVES UP AND COME TOWARDS THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAMP," elaborated a bot, Lemeans finding it came from the black and red one that came with the two squads of _reenforcements_.

"What's the meaning of this." Jerking his head, Lemeans watched as the grey kola stepped forward from his left, standing amidst the still sitting crowd. Servos were being operated, but Lemeans not knowing from which bot. Then he heard the heavy foot steps racing around the corner of the hut from the main entrance of the camp. Four Eggbots appeared, brushing past him, Henry and Leo, placing themselves around the outer edge of the prisoners.

"THE MEANING IS SPECIAL. DOCTOR EGGMAN HAS ORDERED YOU ALL TO BE RELEASED FROM YOUR CAPTIVITY!"

"Then why do we need to gather around?" Lemean asked harshly, his English accent fluctuating to that of a major in an army full of misfits.

"DON'T MAKE THINGS COMPLICATED FOR YOURSELVES!" retorted the bot, looking Lemeans square in the eyes.

An Eggbot with a large broad sword appeared beside the black and red one, Lemeans watching closely as the new bot to the conversation seemed to stalk than be like a prophet. "THEY'RE GETTING SUSPICIOUS!"

"About what?" screamed Bridget, the lynx rising along with her son.

"_Oh, dear Aurora–child stop and sit back down!"_ Lemeans shouted to himself.

No sooner when the young mother had made her own suspicious clear, the harsh whine and hums of weapons charging up bathed the bristling air. "EVERYONE ON YOUR FEET, NOW!" ordered the leading bot, picking up a small child and throwing him to his shoes.

Lemeans tried to move to get the kid, but several lower pitched hums came streaking across the sky. It was a flying Eggbot, its round hulk with wings slewing sideways, gliding in from the north, its main auto cannon perched underneath its fixated grinning face–charging up. And when he thought one was bad enough, a second appeared over the hut, hoovering slowly overhead above the now frightened and screaming mobians.

"GO SEARCH THE REST OF THE CAMP!"

A loud beep of confirmation came from the four bots behind them, all sporting weapons from a broad sword, a arm mounted plasma thrower, to the two purple bots holding jousts and shields.

Lemeans' heart sank when they rounded the first row of huts. If any explosion, any loud discharge of electrodes to deadly orbs of heat raked the air, the jig was up, and everyone was dead–

"They're holding up behind the southern western hut," came Leo's whisper in Lemeans' pointed ears.

He sighed briefly...but just briefly.

And with renewed confidence, he inhaled for a sharper, accusing voice. "So you're going to take to murdering us."

The black and red bot turned in Lemeans direction but began strafing sideways toward the north fence line. "WE'RE MACHINES! WE DON'T MURDER!"

"Come again! Then explain to me the day before?"

"ORDERS!" it said, a few bots closing beside it now, Lemeans estimating with the arm mounted blasters of the three, getting positioned for a nice crossfire for a better kill zone.

"It's still murder," shouted a female mobian from the crowd.

But to Lemeans' dismay, everyone was following the commands. Everyone began standing. Fear had control over primal instincts.

* * *

Seeing the four bots appear then disappear down the row of huts made Christian breathe out a sigh of relief. Carefully moving his head away, clasping his shirt tail from flapping in the unexpected breeze and alerting the bots, he beamed his gaze around Antoine and Mikhail to Knuckles and Sonic, both pressed against the wall and looking around the south corner. "We better start doing something."

Knuckles tilted his over from the other side of the hut. "The roving bot is coming this way."

"We bag dat one," proclaimed Mikhail. "Can you get ones on ground."

"Not all!" Sonic seethed frantically.

Christian almost bolted to Knuckles and Sonic. "Guardian, you at least need to get the towers. Knock out the towers and they can't hose us down."

The emerald eyes of Sonic met Knuckles' violet hues. They both nodded. Then, like an unspoken word passed between them they stepped away from the hut just enough to get into the open space, both holding each other's stares, watching each other's back.

"Like we been practicing, Rad?" Sonic smirked.

"You know the targets?" Knuckles replied, casting a look away from Sonic and attempting to see past the hut towards the gate.

Sonic beamed an assuring wink toward the four mobians, Dextar watching with thrilled excitement. "Hey, kid, check out _this _slingshot!"

Sonic extended his arms out in front of him, Knuckles latching onto both the hedgehog's gloved hands with an iron grip. An assuring nod was all Knuckles gave Sonic before he started to pivot is left foot around his right. Sonic began running slowly, Knuckles pushing his right shoe into the ground and completing the first turn of a circle, speeding him and Sonic up, giving the hedgehog almost into a full run that for him seemed like a jog. Their second completed revolution saw Sonic's feet skipping across the ground, and by the third, Knuckles was kicking at the ground with his right foot, balancing him and the now whirling Sonic on the toes of his left. Dust now began to fly up; Sonic's shoes had now left the ground.

And at this moment, when Knuckles could feel Sonic's hands slipping from his mitts, Sonic gave a smug smile and very sharp wink!

Knuckles released his grip; Sonic becoming nothing more than a blue bolt as his body and figure became enveloped in a blur of colbolt.

The wind howled in his pointed ears as he raced around the hut...not fazing him. His emerald eyes began to water a little from the air drying them out...so he blinked. He focused on the his first target, a lone bot, yellow he thought he saw the colar of, standing with it's plasma launcher aimed at the crowd of Mobian prisoners in the little wooden guard tower. _"Not gonna stand a chance!"_

Tucking his head toward his knees, and within the one second of his send off to flight, Sonic stiffened his quills and in three feet he'd done two spins.

He crashed through the wood, rolling across the planked floor in his ball, cutting the Eggbot down the middle, disintegrating the bot's arm and leg to flinging shards of metal, ripping its metal torso open and on the way through, severing and taking wires and other mechanical pieces with him as the living saw barreled through the other side of the guard tower. To make sure he had enough momentum to carry him through to the second tower in front of him, he strayed a foot on the floor as he exited out in furry of splintered wood.

The second guard went just as easy, taking him through the other side but mostly intact on the outside–until its metal carcass landed on a fence pole, spearing through the hulk and killing the bot right off. The loud thuds reverberated though Sonic's skull, but his mind was racing through it all, telling him to come out of his crusted ball. He landed on an adjacent pole with his red and white shoes, pushing off it just as fast as he hit, tumbling himself one last time in to a spin that was aimed at a flying Eggbot. Gravity was a great help in sawing his way right down the middle of the now twisted floating hulk of metal and wires.

Sonic landed hard out of his spin, bracing his impact with his right hand and left knee. The floating Eggbot he just torn through crashed subsequently, leaving the Plains in silence now, and the hedgehog in his kneeling position and his back turned.

He began to slowly stand after a moment, feeling something was definitely wrong. He wasn't shot at, nor was he spoken to. So he turned, casually and surprisingly at the world he just _spun_ into. Where his eyes came to rest was on a black and red bot that possessed no weapons, but was possibly the brains of the outfit. To Sonic's internal dismay which was also laughing its guts out, he watched on as the bots began to study him, the row behind the lead bot inching closer like a curious tribe to see the foreigner.

"_I'm waiting, sleezbots!"_

Sonic saw something that made his head tilt over slightly and to the left; the roving bot between the fence line seemed to be the only machine making any sense. It was running... and towards him! Sonic could see him when he passed between the open gaps of the line of Eggbots, popping in and out as it tried to clear the first hut that Knuckles and the rest were hiding behind. It had a long way to go to get to him though, Sonic surmised, watching the whole hilarious scene take place right in front of him. In fact, he shook himself just make sure he wasn't in a loopy dream or hadn't suffered from his very first concussion.

Then he smiled, tapping his shoes before raising his high, mocking voice, feeling his eyes starting to ring, like the show was really about to begin. "Hey... been looking for someone cool and blue?"

The lead bot looked at Sonic a second more before its vocal possessing unit ignited the air:

"PRIORI–"

A sudden shriek torched the air and before Sonic could blink, and the bot in front of could release the rest of Eggman's primary order, the bot running between the fence line disappeared in a sudden burst of dust, smoke and parts, the blast's shock wave carrying on the barbed wire fence like a rippling wave, striking the lead Eggbot enough to make it jerk forward. The crowd screamed from the explosion, and Sonic charged forward and smashed his fist into the weaponless bot. It didn't have a fleeting chance to stay up right, Sonic carrying it forward with his hand still in the machine's chest cavity, stopping suddenly and jutting his arm to release it.

The bot's lifeless hulk smashed into a sword toting Eggbot, knocking it to the ground.

But for Sonic, there was no time to spare for anything. He was now the most prized target of the gathered machines and he was completely surrounded by them, and too many innocent cannon fodder in-between.

"Everyone run to rear!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He started to point to the east, the direction Lemeans wanted them to go–

He almost lost his arm when a red plasma bolt hissed under his forearm and scorched the dirt ground beside his shoes. All Sonic could do was run, and opposite of his pointed direction, only looking up to see where the bolt came from when he felt himself become a suitable good moving target.

"_Man, where do those things come from!?"_ he growled to himself, his eyes taking only a small glimpse of another flying Eggbot, its color green, but its auto-cannon spewing red plasma bolts in his direction.

He swerved to the left some, felling the sudden heat of a round slicing at the ground near him, watching the fence rise up as his increasing speed took him closer. His mind blinked and he was spinning, quills stiffened and fingers crossed. He couldn't maneuver as well as he could upright, but he'd gotten enough speed up to make the bot begin to shoot ahead of him, however not far enough that its rounds raked the ground behind him, tracing a line of the hedgehogs slicing path through both fences.

But the bot had the hedgehog dead to rights. Its calculation of its next burst of plasma had Mobius' hero locked in for martyrdom, its cannon lifting up, ready to peel off–

Knuckles had cleared the second hut in the center row when Sonic had spun through the fences, jumping onto the third at a full sprint and reaching the edge. He leapt with both his feet, dreads flapping at his back and shoulders in the fall, his body leaning forward with his right hand cocked back all the way at the elbow past his ear, leaving his left out front, his twin knuckles like sights to a weapon over the screaming crowd below. A surge of energy filtered through his body; the chaos power he was born with. It was the last peace he had before his enraged warrior took over his soul.

His fist shot out like a steam driven hammer, smashing into the flying Eggbot through its metal skin, crushing a few vital CPU's that instantly cutoff all flight programs, and with the Guardian's now added weight and pure force, bot and echidna plummeted to the ground.

As the minor pain and gratification slipped from his psyche Knuckles lifted himself just high enough to check over his shoulder, witnessing Antoine hurrying in a full run towards him. "Twan, get with Lemeans!"

"Look outz!" screamed the coyote's french clarinet voice.

It was just in the nick of time that Knuckles felt the shadow of an Eggbot tower over him in his kneeling posture of the flying bot he had just slain. His purple eyes grew very wide when he caught the gleam of the raised broad sword over the bot's head.

The sword came down, and Knuckles' left arm shot up and blocked the strike with his forearm, rotated it and clasped his hand at the hilt of the weapon. Pulling the bot forward, and pushing from the dead carcase with his legs, the echidna gave a powerful uppercut that launched the bot's torso and legs skywards, while Knuckles' grip ripped the arms off the droid. Wires and sparks exhumed from the twitching limbs as the Guardian was breathing hard and aching at his right hand. Where the bot landed was anyone's guess but for Knuckles it was out of the game.

"Hey, Ant!" he shouted over his labored breathing, turning his face toward the running coyote, "Got'ya a sword."

Standing was the only thing that went through his mind now. Climbing to his feet, he began stripping the limbs off the sword, looking also in front of him for any new targets. People were everywhere and the bots that he could see were in the mix–

"Ah great–"

He was thrown forward with a sudden rush of air, his body feeling a pang of heat and pain when he slammed onto the ground. A ringing sound presided in his ears and his throbbing head. Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, hot shards of something pelted his back, head and legs. Rolling his head over behind him, he could see a plum of newly created smoke and several slain hulks of twisted burning metal strung out on the dry ground.

"Geeze, guys–little close?" he groaned partially to himself after realizing who's handy work had just exploded behind him.

* * *

"I'd say it was a good shot, no! Four bots with one round!"

Christian wasn't amused at all. "You just about killed my Guardian, Mikey!"

"_Da_! Good save, too, comrade!"

The brown echidna didn't know if he deliberately shook his head or whether it was the sudden rush of adrenalin coursing through his veins. He stood as fast as his shaking legs could manage, grabbing Mikhail by the arm and rushing him forward tot he east of the compound. It had been a long time since Christian felt this surge of total fear mixed with utter excitement, his vision focusing on everything in front of him: the passing hut, the next one ahead, the fence line–scrambling for cover beside the wall, peering out slightly. Everything was quaking to him, his nerves twitching from every scream and cartusion of blasts.

"Christian?" Mikhail called in a course whisper. "How's our tower?"

The EST officer peered an eye out, observing the frantic state of the bot in the rear guard tower. It was pacing, its arm blaster searching for a target. Leaning back, the echidna took a breath and reached over to Mikhail.

"Launcher," he breathed out in the hot air. His lungs were working way too much.

"Easy, friend," Mikhail cautioned, handing Christian the large tube with the sporty looking trigger handle.

The thing weighed a ton as he shouldered the bulky launcher just beside his head. An ocular sight was fitted to the side and in good position for Christian to place his eye over without hardly any discomfort. His index finger found the trigger, his sight watched the power level rise on a bar to full green beside the digital, red crosshair inside the ocular. Everything looked normal...he couldn't say the same for the feeling.

Christian leaned out, Mikhail bracing himself, almost squeezing himself against the wall, watching the echidna go to work.

Placing the tiny crosshair on the bot, Christian gave no thought how or when he should place his finger on the trigger. He just did. The launcher bucked severely on his shoulder, a white cloud of smoke flared around him and Mikhail. But the guard tower erupted when the large red plasma ball connected to the bot on the inside, spewing fire and black smoke to the four winds. The structure began to fail as well, tumbling like a falling tree, it crashing on the fence line.

"Doors open!" Christian shouted, before taking aim at another section in the fence. From the screams that was beating at his already aching head, trying desperately to keep his flash backs at bay from Eggman's triumph and murder of his people in Echindolopis, the now what felt like he was a reinstated EST officer waited antagonizingly for the green bar to reach the top inside the sight. The launcher purred in his hands, the bar reaching its full height.

He squeezed the trigger, another buck followed by a less than intent explosion of fire, smoke and dust the created another hole in the fence line dead ahead with the residual wave rippling through the rest of it.

"Time to get Lemeans," Mikhail said, slapping Christian on the arm. "By the way, I'm better shot."

But Christian didn't really care. He was giving his past nightmare back to the machines and the Overlander who planted them there.

"_Kripta."_

* * *

"Sounds like our _utensils_ have gotten us a way out!"

Unfortunately Lemeans wasn't in agreement with Henry. Not when a blaster bolt severed a male rat's life right in front him. "Get everyone going! Do it now Henry, while we've got a bloody chance!" he ordered, holding up the wall to the northern hut with his back.

Twisting his head, he descried Knuckles smashing a red bot with a plasma arm amongst the crowd. Just behind the crimson echidna was Antoine, swinging a broadsword as hard as he could at an Eggbot with the same weapon. The slice was parried very harshly, sending the coyote backwards to the ground.

He rolled, his fluted voice screaming out as the Eggbot slashed at the dirt. Completing the roll actually gave him an opening though. As the bot almost effortlessly rose its sword above its head, Antoine giving no thought to muscle memory, stabbing his blade inside the bots chest. Apparently to Lemeans it did the trick, for the bot staggered back before submitting to its death and gravity.

And with this the bot numbers were indeed dwindling...but not enough.

"Leo!" Lemeans shouted to the roar of the screams, grunts and the occasional _BOOM_!

"Right here!" came the hare's distant reply.

Lemeans checked over his left shoulder, finding Leo gathering as many kids as he could and hustling them over in the leopard's direction. Crutching over his cane, the old spy in the ripped open shirt worked his way closer to the hare. "Where's Bridget?"

Five kids scramble past him when Leo made his reply, "Getting our sick ones in the middle hut."

"Liz?" Lemeans shouted next.

He watched in painstaking horror as Leo's hand directed his gaze over to the face down body of the female mouse who everyone had tried so hard to keep alive the night march before. Smoke floated from her back, Lemeans wincing with a pang in his heart when his mind envisioned the girls spinal fluid turning to steam and killing her.

"_We need our own!"_

Checking around him, he found the dead hulk of a Eggbot, its blaster arm steaming from a recent discharge. "Leo!" Lemeans voiced, "help me hot wire that weapon. We can possibly buy us more time!"

Leo nodded, grabbing Lemeans' arm and rushing the both of them as fast as the limping leopard could manage.

A plasma bolt licked the air between him and the now eastward turning crowd. "Knuckles!"

* * *

The Guardian spun around, delivering a round house kick, making sure his metal laces endured the blunt of the attack, and collapsed the metal chest wall of an Eggbot before the thing could swing its sword at his neck. His foot felt numb, but in all other aspects...great. "Yeah!" he shouted into the air, knowing the voice he heard calling for him was Lemeans.

"Cover us, we're gonna make us a weapon!"

Knuckles pivoted towards Lemeans' roving voice. "What!?"

But he was met with a raging river of Mobians instead, his hand needling through them until he had to use his arms to swim. Just when he thought he was close to getting to the hare and leopard, a purple Eggbot appeared behind the crowd, joust in hand along with a shield.

The bot jutted the lance, but Knuckles sidestepped out of the way...unfortunately to the right. All he could do was clasp his arms together and hope the shield was not going to hurt so bad. He was almost deadly wrong. Like being rammed by a hurtling safe, Knuckles watched his sight from the bot dwindle as the impact took him straight in the air before gravity had a chance to reclaim him. He landed right on his tail, making him grunt in pain, and commanding his body to roll somewhere.

"Oww!"

He tried to get up. He tried to gather his senses. But the ringing in his head was more pronounced. His back was throbbing uncontrollably, his tail felt like someone had straighten it and them jammed straight up his spine. And what was worse, all this burn he was collecting in his senses ordered him to stay.

Disobeying became a chore. He worked feverishly to get back on his shoes. He had to, the bot that knocked him down was in full running charge with its lance straight toward him.

One foot planted, knee still touching the ground. His strategies where racing through his mind faster than he could pick out which one to use. _"Forget it!_" He ironed himself on the ground, readying his left hand to divert the lance and give the bot a refund on the his blow. Knuckles heart skipped when the point came deadly close to his chest. He swung out his left arm, driving the joust over his left shoulder, and when the bot was about the use the shield again, the Guardian pounded his right fist straight into it.

The shield dented and the bot went flying backwards like a ball with flailing arms, landing onto another Eggbot.

Breathing out before inhaling, Knuckles held onto his stance on the ground for a while longer. It was just in that _while_ when Antoine's voice echoed in a scream. The coyote was pinned on the ground, Dexter was doing his best to splat the straddling Eggbot with rocks from his slingshot...and Knuckles' attention seeing two more bots coming from that direction, facing him down.

* * *

A glance past his shoulder, a lone flying Eggbot. All Sonic could do was grumble at his situation. From all the flimflam about his blue and tan hide, all he could get to chase after him was one lousy flying Eggbot.

"_Man, where do they come from?"_

His eyes darted forward and to the left. _"Hey, a wheat field!"_

Dashing at a leisurely pace for him–a stomach churning turn for others–the blue hedgehog turned into his new heaven. Slowing himself, he started to jog his way inside, looking up and around for the Eggbot. _"Yep, it's still–oops!"_

His body landed chest first in a nice looking clearing when his legs got entangled with something hard. How on Mobius could such a _cool_ hedgehog go for a nice trip? His answer at his feet was a long scabbard sheathing a sword. "Ah, thanks Ant for the ride." Keeping still–besides his voice–Sonic strayed an eye over his back, curling his arms underneath his chest ready to push him up at a moments notice. He didn't hear a hum, nor could he see the red painted Eggbot flying around. With one coast clear, he stood up slowly, wandering his head around, particularly towards the east.

"Wow," he said dumbfounded to himself. "It may be painted red, but its primer coat is yellow."

The bot had turned back towards the east. Which was just groovy: _"NOT!"_ Turning completely around, the hedgehog floated his darting eyes toward the west. A dust cloud was approaching. "Ah, spiffy, re–en-stupid-forcements! So, what's a hedgehog to do now?"

It was laying at his feet.

Picking up Antoine's saber, Sonic tossed it in the air like he would a baseball player looking to get the next batter, rolling the dormant weapon over and over while looking east where he was going to pitch the thing. Deciding that the slapping of a thousand wheat straws wasn't his idea of fun, Sonic made his way back out of the field to the road, pointed himself dead-east at the prison, looked behind him to see the growing dust storm behind him, spread his feet underneath him, smirked and took off in a hard sprint. In no time was his world an instant blur of tan, brown and passing lines and holes.

Cocking his right arm backwards with the sword becoming more like a spear, Sonic jumped slightly in the air, landing his feet toes up and heels planted to make him come to a very sudden stop. When shoe and sole met ground, he hurled the saber through the air. "Happy be-day, 'Twan."

It looked like the saber could go on forever, becoming a rising object before distance created a falling dot. Away from Sonic's sight, though its limitations of flight were soon to be known, as the wind cut down the speed of the scabbard blade, making it become a mere projectile without any devices or additions to make it fly true, only to careen trough the air like a tumbling rock.

But the mark was almost true...Antoine's weapon stopped its flight when it smacked the side of a hut and landed on the ground just seventeen feet away from him. Unfortunately for the coyote, he was too busy squirming to the right just as the Eggbot's sword sliced through the air, then to the ground Antoine had been upon.

"AAAhhhhh!"

The sharp _BANG_ of the blade made him scream louder. He squinted his eyes over his arms before rolling back over, only to see the bot preparing another overhead swing at him. This time when the blade came down, Antoine bent his body to the left. Seeing his reflection on the bot's blade beside his head dissolved what he had left of courage to a different barren waste land. He clawed his arm above him, kicking with his legs to try to get out from under the bot when it released the sword from the dry ground. He made progress, scrambling a foot away before the bot lunched over him and swung again.

Antoine rolled right again, the blade almost taking a piece of his blue blazer with it. "Ahhh!"

His scream seemed to help, but his ordeal just became worse when the bot inched his foot behind Antoine's slightly turned back. He was jammed, hardly able to move from side to side. Reaching back with his arm, he began to desperately pull himself away by his fingers. He moved an inch...that was all he could get out of himself.

The broadsword was now perfectly leveled over the Eggbots head. Antoine forced a gulp of air down, figuring it was going to be his–

Something metal slapped into his over-extended hand, and before his mind told him to look back, his conscience had already felt the handle and broad hilt of his saber wrap within his fingers.

The bot's sword came down. And Antoine's saber was up faster than he could think to parry the blow. His swing from the right swayed the Eggbot's sword over just enough to let the swordsman in the coyote find a well opened spot on the machine's left side where he in turned stabbed the tip of his blade. The blow wasn't the trick he needed, but it did enough to get the bot's foot out from under his back.

Bringing back the saber, Antoine swung it with all his might that the ground could offer and let the curvature of the blade do its most lethal work, severing the left leg of the bot with it's strong metal, purposely forged to slice through anything. More importantly, Robotnick's minions.

The bot lost its balance, falling over where its leg had been severed.

Antoine rolled over and shot up, taking his saber with the tip down, centered his left hand over the back of the handle...and speared it through the head of the Eggbot.

"Behind you!"

The warning had spun the now energized coyote around. He barely had enough distance and breath to pull the saber out from the dead hulk of the machine he had just killed, and with a hard swing from across his body, swatted a driving sword away from his abdomen, following it with a two handed cut straight up his new opponent's torso. The blade dug in deep, filleting the red and yellow droid almost in two.

Stepping past it as the bot fell, Antoine's turn to the north revealed a charging black and red bot with a lance and shield. He held his breath as he looked just to the right of it. The bot was ready to counter, and Antoine only had a split second to pounce to the left, sending his saber down via a low swing from a backhand, he diverted the lance further inward towards the bots chest, giving Antoine enough room to come back with an upswing, taking the arm and a good portion of the head.

But just before he could witness his latest victim grind to a halt and sprawl out on the dirt floor called Mobius, a loud hiss singed the air past his right ear, causing him to tear his eyes away to find the point of origin–

A sparking, burning Eggbot, blue in color, collapsed just to the left of Antoine's right blue boot, its arm blaster nearly taking the coyote's leg from the fall. Looking past it toward the west, the coyote gazed at Leo and a hard breathing leopard, both crouched on top of an Eggbot of their own, its blaster arm razed with wires and sparks, pointed in Antoine's direction.

"Hey, mister," called out a small, but overly determined voice just to the side of the Royal Guardsman. It was Dexter, extending out a scabbard to Antoine. "Want this back?"

All the coyote could do was smile and take his scabbard, knowing righteously well it was Dexter who put his saber in his hand.

"Knuckles!"

The Guardian's low monotone voice echoed behind the center huts. "Over here!"

Running with Dexter, Antoine stopped cold when Knuckles came around, his face in disarray. "What?"

"How's the fight?" Knuckles asked, diverted.

"Good. Last of the inner camp was sliced away," said Leo from behind Antoine. "But we have a problem, Lemeans says he can see dust rising to the west."

"By chance it'z Sonic?" Antoine asked his heart still beating uncontrollably.

"Don't hold you're breath," retorted Leo. "How many have you gotten out?"

"None," Knuckles grumbled, throwing his hand behind him but not looking. The whole prison was holding up between the huts, catching their breath while swallowing their sorrow.

"Find Henry, Leo," came Lemeans from behind them, his laboring face and body appearing from around the hut.

Knuckles shifted his eyes to the ground, then his body to the side. "I couldn't get the bot in time."

Lemeans' heart sank further than he thought was possible. The hawk was lying on his left side, his wings crumbled around the pool of blood that was soaking into the ground. But what was so sorrowful to him was the sight of the camp's children sitting around him, never carying about their school master's blood spreading around them, but all having their hands crumbled over his lifeless body.

Corey seemed to be the only Mobian crying.

"Ah, damn!" cursed Lemeans, finally releasing something. "David?" he shouted soon after, falling his head around his chest and shoulders. Knuckles could see the frustration spewing out from his sweat.

"Here, Lemeans!" came the chipmunk's dry voice from afar. Lemeans looked up long enough to see the lad standing up from the huddled group by the middle hut.

"Head counts! And get the kids ready to go, tell them to get any sick persons with them."

"We still have three in bed, but they said they will die trying to get to freedom!" announced the kola's distant voice from the rear most hut.

"Great," Lemeans said relieved once more in his gutted voice, "get any able body fit to carry them." Surveying the three huddled masses that treated the small alley as a no-man's land, he asked, "Where's Christian and Mikhail?"

"Guarding our backs?" replied David.

"Along with Sonic," Knuckles added, stepping around and up to Lemeans. "We should be okay with him running interference."

"Should?" Lemeans quizzed harshly, "he's just one mobian against the coming regiment, not to mention to the bloody arsenal coming with them."

Knuckles waved a mitt in front of Lemeans while turning his head to the west–he thought he heard something coming...and it wasn't Trueblue. "Trust me, he's gone up against worst."

"Oh, really!"

"Yep," came Knuckles' confident reply. "Me!"

A moment passed when Lemeans nodded his head and turned to Leo. "Two minutes and we're gone. Get everyone all set to leave. Only the living."

But before the Hare could reply, Knuckles' strong voice cast an ominous tone through the sweltering and burning air with his sight trailing around to the northwest. "Ah, we may not have two minutes."

* * *

A look to the right: _"Nothing!"_

A look to the left: _"Something!"_

His feet were shoulder width apart, taking on a stance like he was a lost traveler, throwing his head once more to the right, then to the left while standing in the middle of the well beaten road. But what Sonic heard with his ears was the silence of screams and the far away popping chirps of discharging blasters. It was when he swivelled his head like someone who thought they heard a bawd remark when the party music abruptly ended that the growing dust cloud was formulating into a swarm of Eggbots. And like a halo above Eggman's minions were the Eggbots that flew. There was no organization; just a programmed reaction to Mobius' blue hero's induction to crash the evil Doctor's plans.

"Awe, cool–a buffet line all to myself!"

Right foot back, ankle bent at the leg, sideways: _"Check!" _Left foot bent at the knee, toe aimed straight at the approaching mechanical mob: _"Check-o!" _Body leaning forward, hands tight in fists, arms swayed back with his left fist centered near his skin chest: _"Check-a-roo!" _And lastly on his promptly made-up checklist; eyes forward, his uni-brow knitted down in a ferocity of glee, cheek muscles pulled to a vivacious smile: _"Check, check and triple-check!"_

"Ladies and gents, please have your seatbelts on and tray-tables up...enjoy the white-knuckle ride!"

Not letting his mirthful, sniggering voice get any further than his ears, he pushed his legs independently, his right launching him before his left, and fired down the road. Sonic's world seemed to go by him like a jaunt. But ten feet later the wheat field to his left became a blurred wall of tan, with the desalinate range to his right looking like it had become a passing playground. Sending a burst of energy to his thighs, the make up of his shoes disappeared in a blurry sea of red and white. Distance became a plaything now with his eyes keeping straight-on at the lead bot.

A flash from the center of the group, enough to excite Sonic just enough to make him lean to the right slightly, letting his shifted weight guide is peddling feet off course just a hair. The skin on his left arm felt the hot plasma bolt's pass, Sonic giving his back muscles the command to shift right and with it his feet and body. Never looking back to the see the red blaster round be lost in the rooster tail of dust he was throwing up, the cobalt blue hedgehog burned his feet faster, pumping his legs to pick up a second burst of acceleration. The wheat was being shoved over from his wake as he passed.

And the bots hadn't parted when he rolled into his ball of razor sharp spines and sliced through the lead bot like it was paper. Parts, mechanical limbs and splatters of oil flung through the air at incredible rate, but for Sonic, as he felt every impact of torsos and legs sting his quilled body, and gladly never counting, everything felt as if it was slowing down. That was until he crashed through the rearmost bot like a dead-blow hammer from a child. If the bot had pride, that was all that was injured when its feet were knocked out from under it.

But even when his momentum seemed to diminish from his parting of eleven bots, and one sour customer on his back, he jumped both feet, twisting his body to turn and look at his marvelous handy work of suspended mauled parts before he stomped his shoes on the ground and slid to a stop.

"Sonic the hedgehog," he quoted to his own self, "rain-maker-of-parts."

It was like watching the aftermath of an explosion; shards of metal, arms, legs, and what he thought was a head began lathering the thrown carcasses he shredded and with momentum threw to the side. It was like he parted a river of Eggbots, leaving a littered path to streak down. Problem was...the bots he didn't knock out, or down, were either rising or beginning to level their weapons at him.

Planting his right leg dead on the ground, he swung his other around it, twisting his body around ready to launch himself again and thin the rest of the herd.

Then he remembered he had forgotten something. _"Where are those halos I'd seen hoovering over those tin-cans?"_

He darted to his right, almost tripping over himself to get away from the strafing flying Eggbot that was leaning hard in its turn and assault. The high pitched firing of its discharging auto-cannon was like a screaming zipper that chewed up Sonic's path. Dodging left for a few feet, then gaining much needed speed and banking his body to the right for at lest three meters, he was well above sixty miles-per-hour when the bot had redone its course and powered its internal jets to kick itself in pursuit of Eggman's, "Priority One."

A passing bush was like a green wooden sign that for Sonic said, "this way south," as the hedgehog thundered his shoes with no remorse on the dirt floor. His eyes were roving faster than his legs were moving. The smudges he saw were obstacles to avoid, pushing right foot sideways on the ground that sent him almost flying to the left before he regained his rhythm in his very blinding strides, breezing by a tree that looked to be petrified–

_CCCHHHEWWWSSSSS–POOF!_

Dirt erupted in front of him, running through the dust without having the time to avoid it.

"WHOA!"

His head jerked to look behind him. "The sucker wants a race!" he exclaimed, darting hard to the left before another bolt landed where he could've been.

The Eggbot had caught up, almost lazily keeping pace but having one degrading time of targeting Sonic's erratic movements. _"Note to self, thank nature for making me be less of a sitting duck."_ He poured on the speed, dodging to the right again before he almost slammed into a small tree that was more like a shrub to him.

It was all looking good now; the bot looked to be fading as Sonic stole another look to his back.

It sucked that reality was deceiving.

Seven red hot bolts nearly caught him as they racked the ground like a wall in front of him.

Sonic slammed his feet quickly on the ground, creating friction–and a load of dust–that slowed him down just enough to slide through the aftermath of the missed shots, swearing he could feel the heat singe under his shoes, then, like he never lost a beat, threw his legs into overdrive and pushed himself up to where his shadow was going to have a hard time in keeping up.

A weird wind sliced overhead, his green eyes straying just enough to see, _"THREE MORE!"_ flying Eggbots bank hard overhead to join the pursuit.

South was looking more enjoyable than turning around to help Knux and Twan. Not even he could last with ground bots and these annoying flying pests of metal. Distance and speed...as soon as he achieved one or all of the above, he'd be in great position to take them down. In which case, South was a great direction!

"_Yea! Just like going down hill!"_

A slight turn of his head brought his snickering smile to his pursers. "Okay, guys...you caught up to Shadow, but let's see if you can keep up with the real deal."

And his shoes were sent in a whirlwind that had the contour of a figure-eight!

* * *

A long stare at the fence line brought a daunting feeling to Knuckles that sculpted his harrowing heart further into a constricted shell of weight and pain. Sweat lathered his body, making his fur look more darkly crimson than it already was. Even his dreads weren't spared, beads of perspired water napping at his back and tail, soaking the troubled premonition of the run to wire in his bones, locking him solid in his position of observation between the middle and south hut, standing close behind the latter. Beyond that, the eastern row of huts...then to freedom.

But why didn't it feel like death was waiting just beyond the sanctuary of the wooden structures the symbolized cover? The rapping touch that caressed what seemed like every muscle fiber in his body was more akin to a diminutive scientist probing for a source of pain and torture than pleasure. _"What are the chaos forces telling me?"_ he questioned his feelings rightfully. The heavy force that sniveled at his inner-sanctum was undeniably the voice of his birthright speaking to him than just the average Freedom Fighter. To discern all this, however, was burning time that was way past up. Lemeans, and Leo's anxious, fearful faces showed this when Knuckles drifted his eyes over his left shoulder.

His breathing was deep in a pensive way, never knowing the condition of his lungs until he spoke. "Suggestions on how you want to do this?" Knuckles asked, straying his eyes further onto Lemeans before turning his purple hues to the huddled mass behind the south hut to his right. David was there, beginning to get to his feet in midst of the frightened mobians, mostly women and children, and what Knuckles could make out as a brown furred ground hog under a coat of white bandages strewed around his head and chest, hanging close to a girl goat in a denim skirt, and what seemed to be the fashion in this camp, a ragged t-shirt.

"Standard protocol for any situation like this," Lemeans replied, his voice stern with direction, "women and children, followed by the sick."

Knuckles' observation wasn't very forthcoming, holding it under his breath as he leaned out to gauge the distance to the fence line. "If you say so."

His initial idea was to have everyone run in a spaced out pack, giving enough distance between as many people as possible in case they met an auto-cannon somewhere on the run. Close proximity to someone was a sure way to get two killed. But when the echidna turned, nodding to a middle-aged, black furred male gerbil just at his feet, then turning his attention to a female Lynx and her male cub, nodding to them as well, he knew his plan was gone once he started cautiously walking out from the safety of the hut's wall. His heart didn't stop throbbing when he took his second step, speeding up when he took his third.

A trembling hum filtered through his ear, infiltrating his triangular ear canal on the Guardian's right. He had already quickened his pace when heard the unmistakable sound of a hoover unit on full power. It couldn't have been anything Knothole had sent, not this early, he thought, crossing the dead center of the narrow row of huts. More footsteps shuffled the dirt behind him, making his attention drift to either side and seeing Mobian bodies limping and sulking forward like three steady streams from a prong river. This all vanished when Knuckles passed between two huts–

His head snapped to the right, stealing a glimpse of something green and moving fast in the air towards the east, looking like it was banking some towards him. Heart tightening and a stupid lump in his throat was all he felt before a scream ripped through the arid air, and he stepping out from between the huts into the open eastern space.

The shadow of the black smoke burning on the guard tower just to his right became the perfect backdrop for his now wide and attuned eyes to see the green flying Eggbot do a hard banking skid sideways. There was no time to even possibly think but to turn back just as the silver barrel of the droid's auto-cannon swung into his direction. He turned as fast as his feet would let him, grabbing the nearest body in front of him and pushing the girl and her son forward.

Earsplitting pops blasted behind him. Dirt flew around him, hitting his back and becoming mud from his drenched fur, his feet pumping faster as he shoved the Lynx harder through the middle of the huts.

"Go! Get back now!" he screamed before hearing another male voice other than his scream in pure agony behind him. Knuckles just had enough sense to look over to witness the gerbil take at least three red hot bolts to his back, almost becoming sickened when fire erupted on the mobian's arching back. The last thing Knuckles saw before he was grabbed by his arm and thrown around the hut was the gerbil's mouth spitting purple blood and his body falling forward to the ground.

For the moment Knuckles was dragged behind the hut, his breathing seemed to drown all sound in his mind, his heart hammering at his chest wall with the retching smell of burnt skin and ozone overtaking him. That all changed when the Eggbot's firing became frantic, bringing the Guardian back to corporeal world around him.

Screams assaulted him to his left as he found his back to the wall of the hut and his head jolting over to the source. His eyes widened in a terrible horror when they watched a female jackrabbit take a plasma round to her stomach, and a lucky stray shot to her arm. There was no dignity in her fall, nor was the male racoon's journey beside her as he too was cut down at the waist.

With anger gliding over his training, Knuckles stepped out rashly to the side of the hut, balled his fist and began to run towards the hoovering Eggbot. Tragically he only got as far as two steps when he backpedaled and almost dove back behind the cover of the wall when the machine strayed one sensor, then its cannon, hosing where Knuckles had been. Dust and lumps of dry dirt flung through the air as the plasma cannon chewed at the ground. Then the firing kept pumping to the left with the bot never letting up, skewing sideways as it grinded through the middle hut, striking the roof before moving its steady rate of plasma lower, burning large holes in the structure.

To Knuckles' great relief the machine stopped. But the bot's movement from the other side started to grind its way south, and from what he knew, still training its weapon forward.

A pull at his arm brought his head over to the north. It was Antoine; the coyote was the one who pulled him out of the way. "Knucklez, what do we do?"

The Guardian lifted his head up from Antoine and searched the prone mass to his right. "Lemeans–" Knuckles winced and dropped when splitters of wood were spat on him–the bot was tearing up the hut he had his back to.

A bolt penetrated clear through the wall, almost slicing his muzzle open. His heart almost stopped but his muscles took over his body, falling to the ground, taking Antoine with him before he covered his head with his arms. Screams that he was sure weren't his rang through his skull.

And just like a switch had been shut off; the shooting stopped.

"Lemeans!" Knuckles hollered again.

The leopard's heavy accented voice shouted back from the north hut. "Over here!"

It was at the moment when Knuckles was trying to search him out when another burst of hitch-pitched shrieks harped from the other side of the hut. His was spared this round, but the hut to the north was perforated on the roof and sidewall facing him. Then came a small reprieve, like the bot was taking a breathe until it discharged another wild burst, smashing the wood into burning splinters with a few bolts exiting out through the corner of the dank hut.

And the screaming women and kids never stopped!

"Everyone stay put!" Knuckles ordered in his best calming voice he could manage through his punching heart and heavy breathing.

"Mikhail–Christian!" shouted a clean voice from where Lemeans' was lying. It had to be Leo, Knuckles figured in a stroke of concentration; the hares ears weren't hard to miss from all the other prone and hunched mobian bodies who were lying as flat as they could.

Still on his stomach, Knuckles instinctively snapped his head over to his left, finding all his dreads were still intact when a few slapped at his right shoulder just as the heavy Slavic voice chorused from the southern hut:

"_Da!_ And the echidna, he still alive!"

"_Good,"_ breathed Knuckles' inner voice.

"Is the launcher still working?" Leo shouted while the air was calm.

It was Christian shouting this time, Knuckles seeing this when he turned his head back over his left shoulder. "It's trying to charge up! The cell is too–"

The air erupted in a banshee of cracking pops, screams and cries. Wood panels began flying over Christian's and Mikhail's position, some with fire burning at the corners when the Eggbot apparently cued in onto the echidna's pitched voice, trying to silence it with a long stream of red plasma. To Knuckles complete gripping horror, the bot began shifting its blinding spray of death, racking through the hut like an Empress guiding her hand in a long arc to her oppressed subjects, punching through the south hut, throwing a few rounds down the split between the one Knuckles was hunkered behind–he suddenly rolled himself further toward Antoine, who was screaming his lungs out with everyone elses–as more wood was shattered off into the Guardians now up right chest–

His eyes were beating in their sockets to the rhythm of his jumping heart, suffocating his ears with it from all sound until it suffused his body under a paralyzing terror...A girl had stood up from the mass! From her bushy white tail to her tank-topped covered white chest and her spear pointed ears, Knuckles panic stricken brain watched completely helpless as the female wolf's own panic drove her to an unintentional suicide as she sprang from her spot beside another wolf of the same color, but a boy, and started to run away to the north fence. Knuckles couldn't move. Couldn't even will his lungs to force out the needed air to tell her to get down! And by the time she got to her feet the sawing plasma bolts had sliced through her hut and was walking its way–

Leo stood up like a spring board, grabbing the girl by the shirt, yanking her down; crimson bolts punched through the wall in a slight down stroke–

The hare caught one in the sternum, a second burning at the alcove between his nose and eyes...and then came a sailing piece of wood taking a meaty gouge from his left ear. Inertia triumphed over the last spark of his will and soul, his body slamming to the ground as his life's elixir fountained from his sliced ear and penetrated jugular. Knuckles wanted to hurl upon seeing the grey hare's face turn towards him, charred with his eyes burnt open.

But the girl was safe! The girl was safe!

* * *

Christian's glance through the ocular sight made him grumble at the slow progress of the charging. It was when he looked back up to where the Guardian was lying prone, he nearly screamed when he saw Leo's jerking body lying next to a very scared female wolf. If it wasn't for the ringing in his ears he could've heard Lemeans cry for him. That was the last thing he saw before he clutched Mikhail's arm and started to pull him around the side of the hut.

"Leo's dead–"

Christian cut the beagle off in a furry. "I know!" he screamed, dragging his legs in a frantic crawl on the tan dried clay floor of the Plains. His back was pressed against the boards, his brown fur almost blending in if it wasn't for his sweat soaked face. Getting to the edge was daunting; the screams were motivating; another foot closer, his leg muscles burning like hot lead as they pushed him forward, the launcher's bulky weight adding to his oppressing anxiety. Faces poisoned his fleeting mind. An echidna woman, her stomach ripped open on a street that laid in ruin under ruin, her purple blood spilling into the gutter. A male's face shouting at him to do something about the invading force...before a shot landed at his back, causing him to collapse into Christian's arms in death. Images of Echidnolopis burning under the might of Eggman's machines. The sneering faces of the dingos from their victory. Of his surrender with Kripta behind him.

The corner. Christian braced his back against the wall, trying to breath in fresh air to cast away those haunting images that were replaying this very second. The bot just purged another burst, drawing up more screams from behind him. It was enough to let training rush in. He looked across his shoulder and leaned his body over before ricocheting back behind the wall in a blink of an eye. The bot was hovering between the middle hut, looking to the furthest hut for its next spray. Boards were scattered like clumps of blocks with small fires burning on top of some, with the body of a groundhog laid waste from the chest up, his legs hidden under the burning boards.

He prayed for courage from Aurora. He felt his legs fold under him, placing him on his knees, letting his toes bend on the ground. "Mikhail, help me," he stuttered, working his arms to put the launcher on his shoulder. It came easier when the beagle aided in hoisting the large tub close to his neck.

Right foot flat on the ground, left knee skirting over to the corner. Taking a breath with his laboring lungs, Christian only had one chance in his life to make this shot. He knew this very well when he leaned over, placing the eye piece over his right socket–

"_Damn it!"_ The charge was barely completed–

Shakes quivered his hand when he saw the bot beginning to pivot towards him. It was like the thing was suspended on a balancing pin that was effortlessly turning.

The Echidna's finger slipped over the trigger. He felt his checks strain as with his bearing face. His eye never left the sight-piece. His hands didn't stop shaking...and the bot's auto cannon was circulating on him. Christian could almost feel his death coming.

TONE!

He stroked the trigger when the bar flashed. He didn't feel the tube buck but marveled at the slow shrieking pace of the large ball of red plasma sailing toward the bot, smashing into it like a javelin. An inferno orb consumed the green metal skin, sending twisted metal pieces to the ground with streaming ribbons of smoke behind them. The bot plummeted to the ground under a rising plume of smoke that had the cold transparency of a black flag.

A slap at his back brought him around from his intricate art of destruction. It was Mikhail.

"Do we have charge left?"

Christian glanced at the sight; the charging process was beginning again. "We do!"

"Good, we might need it!" Helping him up, Mikhail took the launcher from the echidna, and with one hand pushed him forward. "Come on, echidna–to the hole of freedom!"

It seemed everyone else had heard the beagle. The small mass of prisoners began to pour out from between the huts, Christian, suddenly turning to the north and fighting his way through them between the middle housing, stopped only when he had reached his destination beside Lemeans. The leopard was in company with Knuckles, Antoine and the wolf girl, her shoulder occupied with a hard breathing and very sick looking maroon hedgehog. The hare's body had stopped twitching long after Christian had made his way to the edge of the hut. But it really didn't matter now.

Knuckles looked on at Lemeans as the aged leopard steadied himself over his cane under mournful eyes. They must've been close, for Lemeans never moved, but he never cried.

"Bye, my friend. I'm sorry we can't carry you to a fitting grave."

He then eyed the Guardian, stepping around Leo's body and spilt blood. "Time we go! Stay close to the middle. I've got this cantankerous notion reenforcements will be here very soon. That burning bot delayed us royally!"

After nodding, and wondering if Lemeans' sorrow will every return just as quick as he saw it go, he lead the way, running past the huts and finding Antoine waiting at the collapsed guard tower like a stewardess welcoming travelers. Christian's shot to the tower brought with it a bonus, a nice path through the barb wire. They just had to watch their step.

"Lets go, 'Twan."

"Oui!"

Knuckles was first, stepping on a support pole, crouching low and taking his thick padded mitt and lifting up a strand of twisted fence. Antoine ducked through it and sprinted east, Lemeans following, breathing fast and wiggling his cane through the hole. Lending him a hand made the leopard smile at Knuckles for the support. Planting both feet outside the camp line broadened it.

"Freedom!" he sighed out forcefully, "I tell you Knuckles the outside ground may feel scorching like the inside, but there is something pleasurable exuding under my paws."

Knuckles quickly nodded, looking up to where Antoine had scurried off to, finding that the now liberated mobians were waiting for them. "Yeah, too bad a few couldn't feel it."

A kind hand at his back, pressing him forward. "Yes, but they're meeting Aurora for the first time. I hope she's letting them feel it with something better behind it."

They scampered in silence, Knuckles checking his back to make sure Lemeans was still coming along. He was quite surprised at how fast the old leopard could move under his bad leg and thumping cane. The jaunt to the awaiting crowd didn't take any time at all. And when Knuckles thought Lemeans needed a rest, the leopard just lifted his cane and pointed southeast.

"That 'ah way, and make hast everyone. Those Eggbots are still coming straight for us" he bade, then making words into action, he lunched forward with his cane in a dash.

The example was set. Bodies began moving at a great pace that floored Knuckles into running. Antoine kept up with him; something he was really good at doing. And it was grand too–Nicole had just beeped from his tunic pocket.

Flipping the computer screen from its folded state, Hershey's black and white furred face filled the screen. _"Antoine, what's your status!"_

He didn't have the heart to tell her, nor the right answer. He was too busy powering his legs in a constant stride. "Here, you talk to her!" Antoine rang, shoving the handheld computer to Knuckles.

Taking it, the Guardian looked straight at the screen. "Do you have a fix on the comms location?"

"_Wait a sec, Knux!"_ It felt like an hour, holding the computer while running with the now spreading herd. _"Gotchya! ETA in five to six minuets. Can you hold your present location?"_

"No. We're on the move and fast, heading I think southeast."

"_Okay, well check back soon but we can probably intercept without a problem. We just passed over the canyons and Rotor say's he see's the green grass of the Plains."_

Knuckles hid his frown under a nod. "Fine, but approach us from the north and have the gate down. We've got company rolling in behind us."

Hershey smiled through the screen with an affirming node._"Will do!"_ she replied before asking, _"And Sonic. Is he with you?"_

Knuckles grinded to a dead stop. In all the confusing he'd forgotten about–

_BABOOM!!_

His head swayed over his right shoulder, bringing up his mitt in a knife to shield his eyes from the coming setting sun. The thunder had echoed, but it wasn't an explosion. Knuckles knew this and knew it well as he smiled for just a brief nanosecond before his face melted back into his weathered seriousness he was known for.

The sound barrier was shattered...and he knew only one person in the region who could bust it wide open.

"Doing his thing."

* * *

And boy howdy! The next chapter will have the reason for why we have a story to begin with. A good portion of it will involve him.

I tried my best to break this up some for the eyes, and keep the story moving, but I really think I took away some of the action, especially what I wanted to do for Knuckles. This time, I didn't keep count of the bots I was smashing, I just tore loose till i figure some of us might get bored. Note to all: massed staged fights are a pain and you might consider finding a way to make them wrap up good and tight but have lots of killing.

For those of us who've played Sonic Heroes, this had a lot of the elements due to the bots used. I hope I had described them good.

Side note, my friend and co-editor, Professor Ken, has featured our main character Aleutian in one of his stories, "The Death Mohawk Talkshow." He's in the last chapter, that is if Ken hasn't updated yet, and from my stand-point, and some helping but not overly pressured, it's great and a load of laughs. Check it out.

See you all on the flipside...and way down the road.


	35. Anatomy of a Hedgehog

Word to the wise--HANG ON!

This was originally meant to be a two scene chapter, but after doing to edit, and realizing most of my latest works have been long, it's time for a breather.

And it's time I give the reason why we have a story and games to shine in this work. This idea came to me as: if I keep Sonic with the group, he'd be too much for the plot--and now the next chapter, which should be up later today. So, I needed to really split him, like we saw in the last chapter. Thanks to a good majority of my guitar heroes, and I don't mean _that_ game, we have this chapter. And in grateful gesture:

Reverend Horton Heat: "Big Sky, Baddest of the Bad, Reverend Horton Heat's Big Blue Car, Revival, Sue Jack Daniels."

Tiger Army: "Under Saturn's Shadow, Towards Destiny+Incorporeal, Trance, Power of Moonlight,."

Brian Setzer: "Hell-Bent"

Th' Legendary Shack Shakers: "Ichabod, Iron Lung Oompha, Cheat the Hangman, Cussin in Tongues."

Course, this was also hard for NOT to see the fretboard of my guitar and trying to write this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic and his people.

Have fun!

* * *

**Anatomy of a Hedgehog**

By: Mauser

How his legs worked so fast, almost anyone who has seen him in his prime–like now, leaning forward, cutting the wind with his upper quill like a razor, the ensuing dust cloud he was springing up behind him, his feet lost in a swirl of red and white–have tried to fathom how he was pumping so much energy into them without tripping. And moreover how could he see anything coming when the world around him was buzzing with motion. Passing a tree, to him it seemed like a twig in the ground with a faint blur trailing it.

Mind constantly probing and plotting; a sway to the right with his body; slowing his piston legs just a hair to make his shift in course a little smoother; a fast twist of his head to face his back then to the front, relying on his quick memory where the pursuing flying Eggbots were in the drafting rooster tail. His judge of distance was the best in the world. It had to be. His very hurtling life depended on his eyes and mind to sync speed with a coming destination, or in his case; target. Consequently the four he was towing along were still very interested in him. They had closed onto him enough that two bots maneuvered to either side of the dust cloud and Sonic was starting to make out their paint schemes. In a way that was good, but in another few feet, they would be in range to start shooting.

Then there was the very ground he was treading on. His jump to mach one propelled him a hundred miles from the camp and the fueling port in just under five minuets, only slowing down when he smirkingly laughed that old Robuttnick's flying droids couldn't fly that fast. Reasoning he had achieved distance between himself and them from the prison, he released his effortless hold on his hammering legs to lighten up on their pounding on the dried out Plain's floor. But that said floor was going to run out. Objects may be hard to tell of the size and shape, but colors in large substance changed like passing from a brick building to a wooden one while traveling in a hover car. The tan dried dirt with the occasional spread of amber grass started to become a little sallow in texture the further he stretched south. And what was worse–his cover was going to fade very soon. The sheet of lose sand that with his passing was kicked up into the hot, slamming air to his whole body under his beating feet, was beginning to sink into the fine lined canyons of what Sonic could only describe as the crocodile skin of Vector's back.

The Mobian Desert was closing. It was time to start heading back.

Peering behind his right shoulder, his green eyes let a hard squint press against his brow, reenforcing the command to his legs to increase their ballet of locomotion. _"Time to turn this party around!"_

Sonic swayed his torso to and fro, throwing his weight over his whirling feet, adding sidesteps to the swings between every third landing of his shoes, creating a serpentine motion to his rocketing pace. Another check to his back; his dust trail was broadening, but hardly enough. Snuffing the air, the hedgehog made his feet do more of the work, bending his ankles so the sides of his shoes could drag across the ground, sharpening his side-windings.

The last look behind his back was the clincher. With a slight lean to the left for the setup, a few heavy pounding steps shot him over to the right, holding it tight, forgetting to make it gradual but barreling toward the west. His eyes fought to look inside the turn, his head twitching every so often to the right and left, making his more protruding quill behind his head become a rudder to fine tune his balance.

"_Drats!"_ His turn wasn't sharp enough, thanking his eyes for pointing this and a faint dark shadow out in the dust cloud. At his present rate halfway through the turn he'd be overshooting his target...that was if he could find it again in his churning tan wake of sand. Bending his body over closer to the ground, he extended his hand to the passing sandpaper paved floor, digging his fingertips on the surface. Clumps of cake like dirt trenched in his pursuit for drag. His hand began to burn from the friction that was passing through his glove as if he wasn't wearing one. _"Almost there, though!"_ his voice echoed from his eyes, watching his hanging dust cloud that concealed his query inside it only to come directly in front of him.

But he lost sight of the bots! The lingering wall in front of him was doing too a good job–_"wait!"_ A ripple in the contour of the screen, just left of him. It had to be something large pushing through the dust cloud. Problem was was he didn't know where to aim. He knew just ahead of the ripple but where–

Ten meters, his better judgement fretting at him; he had to jump now, stopping his legs from peddling as fast as they could for acceleration and planting them in the speed that only Sonic would know just by the quaking jolt through his spine. With his legs being strong as they are to run, so were they to launch him ten feet in the air, and just before his eyes shut from getting dirt lodged in his pupils, he coiled tightly, grabbing his shins and tucking his head between his chest and knees tightly to allow centrifugal force to spin him at such a rate that as he stiffened his razor spines, he looked like one contentious blue saw.

All he could do in this second of anticipation was to spin-and-pray he'd hit something–

His coiled back slammed into something hard, but becoming soft when his revolution circled back around to his head, feeling the nerves deep in the tissue of his quills cutting through what felt like wires and other metallic hardware. He descried the change in light from the his drawn eyelids, going from bright to like being under shade then back to being outside. Head up, body unfurled and before he could get he his sight readjusted after opening his eyes, never knowing whether his sneering grin had come first, or his feet landing on the ground, but in his moment of becoming vertical, he quickly found the rhythm, accelerating his skinny legs and planting his feet on the tan, silk like ground while stealing a fast glance over his shoulder.

A sliced metal hulk was dragged out of the rooster tail, Sonic only finding the resemblances of its former flying Eggbot-self when the split in half head region of the round, shredded figure rolled in a splattered mess of parts. From the cloud itself was a hole that was becoming filled with the updraft of Sonic's kicked up wind, curling two slivers of floating dirt into nautilus shells, counter-swirling like two waves pushing away from each other.

"_One down, and...well who's counting!"_

Not surprising but the three Eggbots that seemed to have launched out like an over pompous actor through a drowned stage curtain, each kicking up their own wafting circles of dust, closing tightly beside one another into a flying-V off to Sonic's left, effortlessly flying beside his dust cloud. He could see all their features: their blue paint over the thin pencil lines of the metal panels making up their spherical shapes, those square, lifeless eyes that twitched to look around...and their stupid humorless grin, strengthening Sonic's conclusion that getting killed by one of these things would be like having the worst clown in all the world boring you to death.

"_But they're looking mighty quick and peeved, dude."_

Which brought him around; how fast was he going? It was as obvious as smoke to fire that he wasn't living up to his name. Looking forward while making a fine shift to the left, Sonic couldn't find a fixed object anywhere to pass and judge the rate of distance and how fast he'd closed on it. But the ground wasn't a steady blur. _"Good clue there."_ And with his dull voice pointing out the trivial–and a red plasma bolt hissing by his ear that reflexively jolted his sight off his left shoulder and caught a flash from a second shot battering-ramming straight for his back–Sonic dumped whatever substance that excited the muscles in his legs to drive faster and marking the very instant to hunch his back over his stiffened abs, hardly ever seen from his round stomach, just at the moment the trailing electron filled shot passed between his ears.

The ground began to lengthen the further forward he looked with every hard push-off he cycled with his feet, only warping like a aluminum sheet back and forth when he easily executed a three-prong zigzag maneuver. It was no-holds-bar! Every little bit was needed to throw off the trailing bots with their precise aim. A small turn of his right foot and he had drifted to the south without changing his entire direction. A four degree yaw from his left and he was racing once again on the same heading. But it was these slight breaking maneuvers that were actually making his heart slam against his chest. Every diversion meant a decrease in either speed or acceleration.

"_But it beats being gettin' sunburnt,"_ Sonic reasoned in the back of his head, racing it behind him to see his progress–

He nearly jumped sideways to the left, feeling every fiber in his body pull him away just in the nick of time before not one, but a basket load of bolts punched by him and struck the rolling ground ahead of him. This time he got the pleasure of being hosed with kicked up dust, throwing his arms up over his face, shielding his eyes from being pelted. A split second passed when he chugged them back at his sides, returning to their pumping motion that could make one believe they were pistons on a screaming steam-engine.

Like letting a new lesson become his new goal in life, Sonic peered over his right shoulder, and with the suddenness of the image hitting his eyes and piercing his brain, he barreled left, dodging a lone bolt that was birthed from the right most-bot. More dirt peppered his body as he immediately dived to the left, nearly getting skimmed by another hot plasma round across his upper arm–he couldn't even breathe out the sharp smell of ozone that stung his nostrils when he had to pile back over to the right, feeling the heat warm the skin under the blue fur of his right quill.

A jerk of his head over his left shoulder. They were still hanging on! Every burst of acceleration he thundered to his legs they were quickly matching it. And every mile he'd accumulated under every quarter minute was beginning to burn in his thighs. His feet weren't hurting–a good thanks to his thick soled red and white, gold buckled shoes–but that was soon to follow, he was sure from his fast heel to toe action.

And there lay his problem as he scoffed brainlessly at himself when he shot a glance to his feet. His shoes stirred under him like twin rocking crescents. _"You idiot! Course they're gonna keep up with your sorry swine tail...you're _only_ do'in two-hundred!" _

Yet his ears were fluttering like paper in his every pursuit of speed, the tips of his quills quivering like thin metal in a hurricane, and his small tail remaining straight as the region he was pounding across in keeping his balance while taking one last look behind him at the bots. They were beginning to break up their formation, widening to either side of him and from what he quickly gathered–and why they weren't shooting–forming a broader concentration of their fire power on him.

As slim as his legs were, one would never believe how much raw energy and cultivated strength that resided in every ounce of muscle fiber and cartilage. Where most Mobians sometimes had to rely on a different source of power, Sonic's speed was as natural as his fur color. He wasn't the only Mobian with such born talents, like Knuckles who even if his egg was saturated with the radiation of the Chaos Emerald by Locke, still possessed the strength his family was known for. Aleutian showed this the most when he knocked Shadow back like a battering ram. But the rest of the world needed a handicap to get them to the stage Sonic was setting his body into.

"_If only I had a power-ring!"_

And with his loathing spilled the volatile fuel of nutrients, oxygen, nitrogen, and his purple blood that nearly all Mobians were known to bleed, over his tightly woven fibers of his muscular legs, Sonic exploded with a burst of acceleration so hard he had to stiffen his back to hold the assaulting G-forces at bay. He unraveled his fists into knives, still swinging them but more as paddles in the air. His pointed ears began to fold backwards on themselves, the sound whirling over the canals but miraculously never silencing the world around him. He didn't know why and like many things that seemed to work, he didn't care. His brows were slimming over his eyes, baring them like teeth of a salivating predator. He could tell he was pouring on the speed, making his smirking visage all the more apparent when he tugged an elated smile at his right cheek. Joy was becoming the extra fuel he was draining from his body that juggled his legs faster.

The sand had disappeared, leaving nothing but a gritty blur that seemed to trace minuscule lines in the dirt. His vision wasn't as vivacious with vibrating quivers now; his feet were hammering the ground every sixteenth second, so fast his skull wasn't feeling the individual footfalls. It was why he could see the passing terrain clearer...it was why the passing three plasma bolts over his head were so vivid to scare him!

"No way!"he blurted out with in scream in the assailing wind. The Eggbots were still in range of him and still struggling to keep up. But at least he couldn't see their bland smiles anymore, their figures looking like blue orbs with wings in the wake of his rooster tail.

He wasn't going to play anymore–abstract that he wasn't just ten miles ago. With a slight sidestep that shifted him vastly to the right at his current blinding rate, the blue cobalt of fur and quills called up his last secret that came to him just by subconsciously wishing for it. Lifting his feet higher, he pointed his heels to the sky before shooting his legs forward while rolling his shoe to expose his square patterned treads to the horizon. Here it was that he slammed his heal to the ground, digging the shoe like a shovel before rolling his whole foot across the ground, heel to toe, and pushing heavily on the balls of his feet to start the whole sequence all over again...creating a cartwheeling circle in the blur of his spinning shoes–

Something hot started to creep up from his back, warming his left arm slowly like he was being tossed in a fast-food pizza oven that his uncle had at his café. From his straight look to the east, he strayed his eyes to where the uncomfortable feeling was coming..._ "Whoa!"_ If the opening of his mouth didn't cause the slightest drag, he would have done it. What now possessed his head to turn to the right, making him change his footing from the unintentional left turn his quills were trying to instigate, was a plasma bolt, sulking past him in the dry, but beating air like it was trying to scamper away from him before getting caught. And to his utter, but mirthful surprise, he felt the same approaching heat sliver its way closely over his left shoulder. Turning his head with purposeful calm, like looking to Sally in a social gathering with a snide quip remark knowingly at the ready, Sonic just about laughed his fur off when he saw a second bolt was trying to take the lead.

And with a curious thought twisting his head over further, he witnessed with his egotistical self, sporting the best smile he'd felt all day, not two more but five more hissing plasma rounds inching their way towards him. Where ever the bots were that fired them he couldn't see anymore. That meant no audience to see this; also meaning Robotnick wouldn't be getting a recording for what he was going to do next.

Unlocking his reserve energy he knew he stored somewhere around his cool-blue body, he dumped it all right down to his toes. Tails had mentioned this little additive was from all the residual energies that he'd sucked into his body with every power-ring he juiced through his system coming back to haunt him in a very good way. If his little buddy's guess was "spot-on" then it was never clearer than watching the bolts starting to ease back behind him. Another tick in his head and he felt his whole body propel faster through the air. Absent now was the cool wind, steadily becoming lukewarm as the air began to turn to friction, all passing across his slim body with ease.

A warble image started to lace his sight, coming on slowly at first before looking like the surface of a lake on a calm day. Then it began to quack. Then his body. But the bolts were still trailing him, suspended in mid-air like all was still. It was all the more reason to push on; the heat grew around his body; the ground became stern in feel now, the sheet of sand was beginning to loose its hold on the terrain...and it was now starting to cone, Sonic feeling the eccentric, but euphoric rush of riding inside it. One last step and he would–

The rupturing of the sound barrier of his stretched body in the ensuing blur he created around him came as an implosion, sucking the air–and the hot plasma bolts–just a shake of a nano second inwards right before the explosion that reverberated like a shattering glass, expanding the air so harshly, so mercilessly, that the plasma fire was sent to the longitudinal winds of Sonic's own compass where his top quill marked north.

And then all was silent around him for the second time of the day.

Not even the rushing air all around him filtered into his ears and struck his eardrums; only the steady beating of his turbine feet was knocking at his skull. And what made this wonderful enthralling notion so intense every time he outran sound itself? So many people were depending on him to use his born talent to save their lives, and in many cases through the years...the world. With it passing under him like he was spinning the world under his own two legs, he reflected on how cool it was to keep up with his own image, just to run everywhere he could without hardly breaking a sweat had been the greatest and most cherished gift his parents had given him. He thought about thanking them. Thought about it...but he realized that when he'd returned from being tossed in space that _he_ was their gift. And him thanking them for brightening up their lives, he knew they would never accept, only pouring him with kisses and hugs and telling him the exact opposite. So he let it be. And he continued to run.

But he also knew he couldn't keep up with this when he was ten seconds into his cone of silence. A glance over his shoulder revealed the flying Eggbots had become mere specks. That was a plus. His feet, however, were sending the slight pangs of aches to his displaced brain. His heel-to-toe strides began to soften from the great energies he was having to induce them with to fight the pushing wind and tension surface of the sand floor. The most irritation was indeed coming from his overworked legs. They were burning a fever from his thighs to his calves, nagging at his head to slow down or he was really going to feel them and soon.

Then the pang in his stomach started to fuss. Sonic now felt the sinking bubble of dour replace his last spent chili-dog and trying to feed on the Lemeans' sunflower slop. There was no other reason why Sonic stayed so lean than to just see the vast amounts of energy his body consumed to let him be himself. His mom and dad could keep him home, let him binge on anything of his choosing–chili-dogs galore–and do this until he's plumbed himself out for once in his existence, and on the third day, release him to watch him burn all the fat off in possibly half an hour where it would seem to take a plumped and sassy mobian four months to do.

Rolling his head back forward, Sonic began to weigh his options of what he should do: turn around and smash the rest of the Eggbots still_ trying_ to follow him, or leave them in what little dust the Plains had left and try to find Knuckles, Antoine, and the rest of the fleeing Mobians. He was starting to see green on the horizon, smiling at himself that the grassy pastures were soon coming. But something was wrong with it, though, the land seemed to be a little lower than he was. Honestly it didn't make any sense. He wasn't flying–well, except on the ground–however, it was the change in elevation that made–

Sonic only had the quickest of snap reflexes and time to see a ledge splitting his path to a halt. His eyes just about popped out of their sockets as his feet tried to brace for a scrambling stop. His stomach shot through his last meal and began feasting on the fear he just swallowed. In the final end of his enchanting run, all he could do was pile-drive his right foot on the edge he just barely slipped over and do his best to leap into the air.

The onrush of air slammed at his body, Sonic finally feeling it in his moment of blank terror. Deafness was reborn with the screams of the air passing over his ears, the ground beneath him shortening at a drastic pace, revealing the half moon incline that looked like a large banked turn for mammoth machines, never knowing he was shouting his revelation until sound caught right back up with him during his seven second moment of flight.

"_WHHHOOAAAAAHHHH!–_" He thought his intestines were going to be coming out his month when his feet landed flat and hard on the ground. Sucking in the concussion, Sonic quickly leaped back into the air, twisted his body sideways to the left, tilted away his hurling direction, and planted his feet into a grinding skid. Clumps of brown dirt perforated the air, speckling Sonic when his passing shoes grounding them up and spat them at his head.

A sudden tightness in his lungs caught his breath short, forcing him to expel it to retry to breathe again...all the while his eyes remained focus on the approaching body of water. "Who put that there!?"

There was no time to start pumping his legs. In the blink of his pivotal fear he was already skidding across it, spurting up a geyser from his hurtling body, crossing the muddy, glass smooth surface of an oasis until the other side of the hundred meter wide body of water dragged under his feet, throwing him into a complete stop. Water fell like rain, whooshing its great majestic mist in the air until gravity seemed to catch every molecule and pulled it down. The setting sun showed a rainbow in the beads, making Sonic chuckle just slightly about his little art decor while something at his brain started to run back to him, screaming.

"Oh, yeah!"

Planting his right hand on the ground and lowering himself, he kicked his feet high in the air like a seesaw, then engaged his legs into a run on a imaginary surface. When gravity pulled down the pendulum, his racing feet slammed the ground and just before he ran over his hand, he pulled it up just in time before his whirl-winding feet catapulted him over a hundred miles per hour on his tenth step. He screamed back across the pond where his speed turned the liquid surface tension into something feeling like concrete under his shoes. Again, he shot up another geyser that trailed him all the way across. He pushed harder once he reached the surface, aiming dead-on at the steep sand incline. Ground turned to sky and his feet felt the deadness of air when he shot up like a cannonball, rolling his body over to watch the ground leave.

The Eggbots were a little late. He was teething on the hope he'd take out the center drone, but his second jump to mach one had put _too much_ distance between him and them. The good thing in all this; they were still _very_ interested him when the bot that had drifted over his right shoulder some thirty or so miles ago was the first to pass under him in what he imaged what he looked like to them at a standstill. A half second passed when the left bot rocketed under him.

His body was becoming one with gravity, his air-time was beginning to end and the center bot was just about to meet its.

As if he were about to juice with his feet on the ground, Sonic twisted his body across his right hip and with a trigger from his brain, sent a serge of energy that coursed through his body and fueled his muscles, and fired him straight to the ground as if he'd just kicked off from an invisible ceiling. His timing couldn't have been more perfect. When it all seemed that Sonic was going to pile straight in the side of the incline, the center Eggbot passed right underneath him. The hedgehog only had split second to tilt his head forward.

His skull connected with the metal hull with a severe _TRANNG, _driving him and the bot straight to the ground. Rodent and machine slammed on the lower side of the incline. Sonic pushed off and leaped into the air, watching the devastated careening of the bot spinning its wings, panels and parts as its momentum flung its mass away across the rough ground, coming to a splashing stop when it somersaulted to the oasis.

Sonic however landed with a little more grace, but he was already beating feet. His hang time and press-box view of the second Eggbot's fileting demise gave him just a sufficient span of time to pick out his next target. The Eggbot that passed him on the right was banking hard into a left turn, powering its internal thrusters to gain precious speed. But Sonic already had his, trucking a quarter mile straight to cut off the bot's turn.

The bot started to level, and Sonic started to jump, throwing his hands at the left wing of the flying drone and snagging it. A tug of war of inertia ensued for a fugitive breath. The bot's strength was challenging but it didn't match Sonic's sheer cobalt drive so that when he latched onto the wing, his momentum threw the bot into a dead-spin like a cranked up ceiling fan. For two revolutions the hedgehog held on, then letting go and rolling into a back spin that cushioned his fall to the ground a little smoother than the first time.

Head up, eyes around, and legs already pounding forward, he took a bead on the struggling, spinning Eggbot. He stiffened his quills for good measure, his back muscles tugging at the cartilage that molded his physical make-up into the worst weapons on anyone's anatomy. Ten feet saw a devious smile from his face. Five feet and he was ready to pump his legs for the jump.

Three feet from his prey erupted with red plasma bolts chewing up from right to left the dirt straight in front him, making him dash right and through the hanging singed spouts of dirt.

Checking over his right shoulder, Sonic swallowed deeply as the lone sober bot he neglected to ferret out in the wide expanse of the clear sky– _"Stupid hog, stupid hog!" _ –had doubled backed on him and was rotating like a clock jewel with its plasma barrel ready to chirp its loud voice of supercharged electrons. Heat licked at Sonic's back and the pounding discharge barks of the cannon mauled behind him. He didn't have to look back but forward, knowing the line that the bots were eating up to get to him.

Forcing a lean from ever inch of his body, Sonic rounded a hard right turn, approaching the incline at a sloping angle. Never thinking twice, hedgehog and bank met. His speed wasn't blinding but it was giving the Eggbot a good workout in its CPU. Sonic traced the incline, following its crescent shape; popping thunders chasing him ever closer. Legs to the limits of his endurance, arms beating the air like a punching bag, drawing on the centripetal force he was creating and inching further up the bank to keep his speed up in the turn.

A fast look behind him. The bot was about to get lucky. Not only was it keeping in turn with Sonic, but it was slewing in his direction as well, closing with every plasma shot at his back. Bringing his gawking, panic filled eyes back forward, Sonic for once was beginning the jump from the half-pipe to open land again. His legs were burning like an oven, his arms were becoming stiff with muscle aches. And did he just feel his lungs laboring for a breathe? This had gone from fun to, _"I wanna go home and cry for Sally's forgiveness for this stupid idea,"_ and very soon.

But from his ambition for amusement came his cheat against the hangman. The bot he'd spun was slowly coming out of it, its program thrusting for a target. Where its careening spin had stopped was centered on Sonic's wall-running trick across the large incline. Barrel up, weapon charged, the bot started to pour on the fire. Unbeknownst to it until it computed the mistake and miscalculation was that the harsh spin threw its instruments and sensors out of calibration, causing its low stream of shots to aim clear off to its left. With a simple binary code to run its diagnostics, be alerted to the system failure, and a quick fix to its lone stray eye looking too far to the right, the simple fix from point to point was to swing its torso around for the correction and to keep spinning to terminate _CODE: PRIORITY ONE_!

Sonic jerked his head back with his face becoming bathed in a dire sweat as his ears cringed at the sound of the second Eggbot's plasma cannon being discharged, this time not seeing his death come as a double whammy, but to witness the blue Eggbot closing on him with being hit by shots raking from the side and back by the _dizzy_ Eggbot with a severe hangover. Sparks bled from its hulk, suffering through four more bolts before its internal cooling system couldn't handle the overheating, and exploded like a plastic bag being popped; metal panels tossing from the eruption of fire but leaving the bot's spherical shape partly intact, dropping to the ground like a bowling ball.

The show was over, Sonic concluding this when he turned his body a small degree and ran off the incline like a surfer calling a wave quits. He didn't stay long in the air, in fact he was already on the ground, throwing on the speed as he took stock of his bearings.

Grass. Dead tawny grass hurled past his ankles, and his footing wasn't agreeing with it at all. If he was primed and rested, he couldn't care a hair on Snively's head about it. But his muscles in his legs were on fire, crying out murder and censored oppression from the tyrant that was pouring on the abuse without care or remorse. He was doing his best to shrug it off though, reminding him that he has felt worse. When Geoffrey St. John was chasing after him with heavy shackles at his feet and wrists, he'd never knew he could tire so quickly. It didn't help he couldn't rest.

It didn't help that he was framed for Sally's murder either!

But here he was, running officially for his tired life–again--watching his back for the _lone_ bot to rise over the horizon and resume its relentless chase. _"Yeah...who's counting." _

His eyes were; one! It was already picking up speed, its round hulk lumbering low across the grassy plain with a centerline cutout right to Sonic's shoes. The hedgehog swallowed his grief and ego. It seemed his barbs had now embolden the bot, the machine was barreling faster than he could accelerate. The blue paint began to fade into color, then those white outlines of its broad, stained smile...and lastly to Sonic's throbbing head:

"_Stupid eyes."_

He was running out of tricks, if he had any left, in his bag of coolness and flashing speed. All he could do for awhile is dodge the hunk-of-flying-junk's shots and hope he was going in the right direction to get Knuckles' help–and hold his tongue that he needed it.

Wide eyes and a tilt to the right, that he swore pulled a muscle, spared his hide for maybe another mile. The grass was becoming islands from steams of dried clay that fingered throughout the plain now. Maybe he could stir a fire and get the Eggbot lost in it? _"Ah, check that Sonic...it don't have legs and it's gettin' pretty sporty."_

Ducking and ducking fast saved his head this time. Four bolts spread through the space above his ears and harmlessly kept going, fading out of sight. No time to breathe or think, Sonic for a good measure slid left; three bolts flared the grass he was just about to run across. He tried to pump his legs faster but the strain was starting to infect his lungs and will power now. A single bolt saw to that for sure, igniting the ground just three steps in front of him, catching him under the hot fingers of its fire.

"_Well, this it dude. Nice knowing yeah, and thanks for the serious bruise coming!"_

Shutting his eyes, still making an effort to be a moving target, Sonic thought to give out a last whisper for a prayer but figured he was going to need the oxygen to keep his legs churning underneath him. He might wince. He might hurl across the ground for twenty miles...nah, he wasn't going that fast. But all jokes aside, he didn't want to see it coming. No matter how much he thought Robotnick would love to see his face just as he the bolt plunges straight into his back–or if the bots good, his head–Sonic didn't like surprises. So in due course, he swirled his mouth and readied his tongue for his _grand pubar_ of a stage exit in life.

Then a strange question hung over his head...why hadn't the bot killed him already–

Sonic turned to force his tongue and maybe an answer...and to his absolute utter surprise the bot was scrambling in a hard bank to the left, throwing its emergency thrusters just under its hover plate to slow for a sharper turn.

Four _larger _blue pulse comets throated across the sky high above Sonic's head. Their marks were dead center, all four impacting under rippling explosions on the bots metal skin, disintegrating the machine in a uneven ball of fire and spreading black smoke. Sonic's head snapped and nearly got decapitated when the oval-shaped fuselage, wearing what he always thought were a set of cyclops sunglasses, pulled up sharply from its strafing dive.

He nearly wanted to keep going and never stop, calling the save a second chance from a mistake upon hearing the groaning, laboring hum of Robotnick Prime's Hoverbot powering for a turn, circling him. It might have been two years ago since the fall of the first evil doctor, but it had been well over two years that he learned to fear the sound of those engines. Listening now, and finding his eyes were very concentrated on the Hoverbot's single cannon posed at the top of the ship, forgetting how large the thing was in retrospect to the new ones he was learning to smash, Sonic didn't know whether his bones were shaking because of his muscles quivering from being used way too long, or the residual fear of wanting to scoot and doing it now.

But he'd stopped...a long time ago, but all he knew now was that he had stopped.

A breath of air expelled from his lungs in relief. The Hoverbot was living up to its name, steadily turning its back on Sonic while extending its twin landing skids and exposing the rear door to him. The landing had a cushy look to it, never bouncing, never swaying to either side. It was a moment before the door slid open and out from the shadow of the entryway came a fox wearing a blue tunic...looking with a murderous eye at him. Just the eye patch scared him enough to want to run away and get lost for a few days.

"Sonic?" came Amadeus' narrowed voice.

The hedgehog held his ground for a pause, looking around him as if he had a double to sacrifice, before devising up a sauntering stride toward the displeased fox. He tried to look innocent, playing on that Amadeus' didn't know him well enough to know he wasn't at fault with _anything_.

This hatched plan died when Tails stepped out beside his dad. "Hey Sonic, left anymore for us?" Tails asked brightly.

His face was as deadpan as a board with his eyes fighting not to roll. "What took you so long, 'Little Buddy?"

* * *

Hope this was fast and exciting! One thing I did, and was worried--and still am--is inserting a bit of Sonic's bravado voice in the narrative, in a way, making it like _he _is telling the story. Hope it didn't kill it.

Anyways, catch you all on the flip side.


	36. The Wilt of a Limping Leopard

Sorry for the three day delay, but my energies aren't quite up to par. Must be because I'm on vacation, and it seems my mind decided to go too. This bites; I've been wanting to finish this whole story while I had the time...and I HAD the time. I hope I can hammer out the next two chapters and soon before my travels resume. But this chapter marks FIVE MORE to go!!

Again, taking care of bogging down you all with long chapters to light ones for a change, here is the next installment. Not much else to say until the bottom. So you all enjoy.

Disclaimer; (yet again) I own nothing of the original characters of Sonic and his crew, except my own, and through persona.

* * *

**The Wilt of a Limping Leopard**

By: Mauser

* * *

They were close enough to make nervous hairs stand amongst Christian's sweat drenched furred body. There was no organization to the bots charge from what the echidna could see through the now magnified eye piece of the heavy, shouldered plasma launcher. But neither was the heavy gasping, harrowed faced mobians struggling to squeeze out what endurance they had left in their bodies and souls to keep running to what seemed liked to the end of the world. The line had taken on a blotched figure in the barren open plains, and Christian and Mikhail had been part of the center until the brown, lumbering echidna peeled himself away with the beagle in tow, throwing all his burning ligaments into a straining kneeling position on his right knee, barely keeping the plasma launcher leveled on his shoulder. From here he could see where the line ended. A hundred meters behind a limping female lynx were the bots, the lead four armed with a few plasma launchers while the rest trailing in the dust cloud armed with everything else to turn the Great Plains into a cutting board.

His index finger slid across the trigger. The hum of the plasma launcher pitched beside his right ear. Sweat poured across his eye, making him flinch when the salt stung under his eye-lid, cause him to pull his head away to rub away the discomfort.

"Hurry up, echidna!" came Mikhail's panicked growl from behind him, finding it to be suffocated with a growing soft whining roar gliding just off to their right.

It was like taking a breath when his eyes deviated slightly, looking over the mud colored launcher's tube and even a little higher to take in a low flying transport's shape lofting its way straight over him. Nose turning up like a rude person might to a bland remark, from what little Christian knew of fixed winged aircraft he could descry the large slats of the aircraft's flaps being fully extended, and the smooth underside now protruding with the extending landing gear. But all this faded when his eye met the eye piece once more, feeling the crushing jolt from his heart commanding him to squeeze the trigger at once.

The tube shuddered violently over his shoulder. Heat pelted his head, face and neck from the onset of the plasma orb's shrieking flight, but holding his eye true against the scope, watching, with the tedious grip of anxiety clinging to his stomach; the straight path of his shot before gravity started to pull at the jumble of superheated electron charged ions down, exploding just left of the small horde of bots; one aiming its own plasma launcher to the sky. The one that ordered Christian to shot.

The blast had no fanfare of fire and carnage, pluming up dust mixed with black smoke and a sharp half moon shockwave that signaled the eruption of the plasma round. It shatter a single bot's metallic anatomy into ribbons of raining scrap metal while tossing its running partner sideways like a marble with limbs into an adjacent bot, both disappearing into scattering pieces of their own demise, and the last blown off its feet. Christian starred as the bot tumbled off to the right, stopped, and ceased to move further. A single blink later was conjoined with the murmured _BOOM_ of his successful shot. Then screams from beside him echoed with it, only to be added by the transport's engines howling from overhead.

Looking through the scope brought on more pangs of aghast. Blinking in the far, upper right corner of the holow graphic display was a cylinder with a dimple at one end suffused with an X atop it. When the shadow of the transport passed over the crowd was when he and Mikhail had the sinking feeling finally settle into the bawls of his heart. Dropping the launcher, he turned around and found Mikhail kneeling beside him to the left. "It's done, and so are we."

Mikhail tried to protest but Christian was already up and grabbing under the beagle's arm, thrusting him on his feet and pushing him forward. "What now?" he asked once up to pace.

Holding silent solidified into a religion. The running band of refugee's swung further to the south like a flock of migratory sparrows, chasing down the landing transport that to Christian's pain, just seemed to hang in the air. In fact it was getting away from them.

"Find Lemeans, Mikhail!" he shouted back behind.

"I don't think he can fly much better."

Shrugging sympathetically, Christian nodded. "Just get him, and rush him forward–"

A confident voice spun his head over his left shoulder. "It'll be fine." Knuckles' smile brightened to Christian's dismay. Then he heard the transport's engines power up, commanding his attention to the front of him. A larger bellowing dust cloud engulfed the tall tail section of the _Lifter_. Christian only realizing that the thing did indeed land, he still wasn't happy the marathon was being extended.

"Nice of them to overshoot us."

Knuckles' bleak visage of comfort left instantly with a scowl. "Hey, it's either this or nothing. Not like they can stop the thing in mid-air and ease it down."

"Then why does it sound like their taking back off?"

Christian's testy voice pinned at Knuckles for an instant. But it was only an instant when the tail figure of the _Turbo Lifter_ reemerged from the dust cloud, back peddling across the sandy plain like coming out from a vale. Its engines were screaming to the verge that Knuckles thought they were going to explode under the immense strain. Dust devils formed from the intake fans, connecting ground and machine with cyclones from the back-draft of air being sucked in from the rear.

"Did I mention it comes with reverse?" Knuckles said evenly to his surprise, hoping at first he could've sound like Sonic. Pumping his legs faster, the Guardian put distance from Christian but close to the head of the fleeing line. The ramp was slowly coming down when he took the lead, checking behind him that even in the face of triumph the trailing mobians behind were staggering.

The engines had died, snapping Knuckles head forward. The ramp was not fully extended to the ground when the _Lifter_ slid to a stop over it's heavy proportioned tires. A meter further and he could see figures bustling down from the incline. Checking over his shoulder one more time caught Antoine in his torn blue tunic pulling ahead of a cluster and trampling his way to the lead mob. Sonic had once told him that he knew when things were about to be over with because 'Twan, somehow decided to be cool and put a huge effort into retreating to safety. There was no doubt to Knuckles that this was true. For when he turned his head forward, he was met by three approaching beaver's; all armed and all ready for the beat down.

"Sir," shouted the closest to the echidna, his beret was square over his head while his green bandoleer slapped against his chestnut furred chest. "Misses St. John told us you're being chased from the rear."

A harping scream resounded straight behind Knuckles, making him close his eyes just for a second when his brain identified the voice like he would if asked a quizzical question about mathematics. It was Antoine: "Zhere botz behind us!"

Just when Knuckles slowed to a stop, and St. John's sent calvary did the same, the coyote had steamed his way past them all and clamored up the ramp. _"I wonder if Sonic would point out that things never do change?"_ A female chipmunk with a baby holding onto to her neck passed the four, with her presence barking to Knuckles to get his head back on the situation. "We got wounded coming in," he panted, his fear coming out on top of his sensible self. "Go back there, and help as many as you can inside."

"_Da!_" hollered Mikhail's thick Slavic voice from behind. Knuckles strayed an eye over his shoulder to see the beagle had Lemeans straddled in his arms; cane and all. "My good friend Christian put bump in road between us and them."

"And it was very gracious of you two, Mikey," Lemeans commended with a strained, even voice, Mikhail placing him on his feet and cane. "However," he started to continue, looking around him, seeing hustling bodies trickling beside him running up the ramp, "aside from the formalities, we need to be ready when the last foot is stamped inside."

A narrowed frown from the beaver standing in front of Knuckles. Lemeans took note of the four chevrons gleaming from the beret. "Sir, my men can put down the pursuers–"

"Where's your officer, Sergeant?" Lemeans virulently demanded. Knuckles thought the leopard's black spots where going to start glowing red.

Vinous came with a voice that poured in the air steeply, drowning all malice, but leaving a bitter after taste of Hershey's profound authority, turning Lemeans' gaze to the inside of the transport. For Knuckles, her tone wasn't gruff enough to be Julie-Su's.

"I'm not an officer, but I do count as one."

Lemeans held his swallow from the acidic gaze the calico cat had bewildered him with, reading himself to fire off his observation as quickly as possible. "Madam, I'm sure you're fully aware of how vital that this transport stays in one piece?" She nodded, backing herself against the inner fuselage to let four hard breathing Mobians run past her. "Then I ask you to have what force you brought with her and keep the enemy from coming within plasma launcher range."

Hershey looked out from her elevated perch above Lemeans on the ramp through her goggles, turned back to a degree that Lemeans saw the blaster pistol holstered at her back, then witnessed her affirming face nod. "Sargent, position your mean close to the _Turbo-Lifter_. Knuckles,"–the Guardian looked to her with locked eyes–"you see any stragglers, go to 'em."

But what was all said started to unravel at Lemeans' very feet. A bear had appeared amongst the second cluster of mobians, hobbling a sloth, looking near death if he wasn't already knocking on death's door step. The creature looked poorest of the poor and this aura of self-deserving sympathy lured two of the armed troopers to place their blaster rifles somewhere inside the large transports before they quickly hustled down the ramp and gently took the pale looking sloth from the boy's back. It was when the boy had disappeared inside the plane that Lemeans' world became focused. He could hear the twin turbine engines whining idly. He could see the sweat stained fur bodies of the people that past him, their skin glistening if any showed, their clothing drenched as if they where running for shelter from a rain storm. He felt his legs burning under his aching feet, never realizing until now how tired he was. Maybe this was the reward he was receiving...to finally rest when the full weight of his exhaustion was awaiting.

But he couldn't just yet, he told himself forcefully. Stabbing his cane on the formidable hot, tan soil, he limbed towards the ramp, almost getting trampled on when an aged female fox nearly ran into him, her head pointed behind her. And that's where Lemeans' went as well, stopping just shy from entering the plane itself. Dust eroded into a kicked up cloud, silhouetting the Eggbots' round contour behind it. The tail end of the last running batch was well ahead of the coming droids. It wasn't enough to make him sigh, but Lemeans felt the tension beginning to leave some.

"Start handing out water," decried a deep male voice. Lemeans stepped further inside the transport to witness the Sargent administering the order, his arms full of canteens with a hord of foreign hands reaching up for them. To the left side was the sloth, his hand getting an intravenous needle and a line placed in him with another battle hardened beaver holding the bladder of saline up high.

Christian's voice startled before sobering him from his gazing stance. "Gang way, Lemeans."

The leopard pushed himself up against the wall, reaching up over his head to grab a static line for parachuters, almost becoming surprised that Knothole did such things, when Christian with Bridget helping him, brought a pig looking too thin that his muscle mass may not hold himself up if he stood, the echidna and lynx carrying him by the feet and legs. And to Lemeans' dismay another trooper, the leopard counting him number four, placed his rifle on the deck and motioned for the Sargent to bring up a new intravenous set.

"This one needs fluids and possibly oxygen, sir!" Lemeans herd the beaver shout out to his Sargent.

Coming from his back, Lemeans turning over his cane to the left side of the plane, was Hershey's issue voice. "Just get the I.V's started, and strap them down." It was all that could be done, Lemeans concluded rightfully, watching the cat placing a few of some now very happy kids on the long red canvas bench while weaving web belts across their waists.

A tug at his shirt brought his attention around to Christian.

"Hey, Lemeans..."

The leopard followed Christian's hard, attuned gaze over the heads of the bunching stragglers trying to push themselves over the ramp. Lemeans had to sidestep some to make room, but his eyes never jostled from what Christian's had locked on.

"Hey, we need help over here!"

Flinching from the grunted shout, Lemeans' drifted his head stiffly from one horror filled sight to the next coming on the ramp. A lone wolf cub in his early teens was bringing a roughly bandaged girl zebra, dragging her underneath her arms, her shoed feet and dress dragging across the ground.

Lemeans was already laboring his way to the boy, finding Mikhail was already helping the lad when he approached him.

"Peter, where's your twin sister?" the leopard asked in a cautious, however worrisome tone flexing from his hunched position.

The young wolf hesitated for a moment, trying to catch his breath so his face could melt in fright. "I-I don't know. She was with me carrying Misses Hambert, but she said she saw David go down or something."

"No," shouted the chipmunk's voice from the center of the plane. Lemeans turned to find David amongst the larger group of mobians sitting on the metal floor. "No, I'm fine, it was one of the others that got wounded from the flying Eggpawn that pinned us down."

And that was the threshing claw of terror that Lemeans felt mauling from the sight he was now looking again towards. "Dear Aurora."

She was far enough away to put everyone in danger if they waited for her. And even then, at her pace and the mobian body Lemeans could see her struggling to inch forward across her shoulder, sending anyone to get them would still put the bots in launching range. He looked to Christian, but already found the brown furred echidna moving away from him and eyeing for one of the troopers discarded blaster rifles leaning against the fuselage. With widening eyes tugging at his face and mind, Lemeans hastily turned to Hershey, but not saying a word to her as he limped to her back. Stabbing the deck with his cane and holding himself up right as he could steady himself, he took his free right hand and gripped the blaster pistol strapped to Hershery's back, slid his thumb across to the snap...and pulled the pistol out from the holster, pushing the girl at her back.

Hershey swore she was picking up her husbands accent when on reflex she shouted, "Hey!" She felt something slide from her back, and upon reaching back, feeling and finding her pistol wasn't in its holster, she turned around to only see a lame, flicking tail disappearing in the onrushing mobians blocking her view.

For Lemeans, the leopard's last look of the girl's chocolate eyes seemed to encrust his decision that now he couldn't turn back. He'd broken a rule; _"You don't take another person's pistol when their helping you."_ And that line had brought him to Christian, the echidna's face solid in fortitude, reason...purpose. One Lemeans was ashamed to cast away when he threw his cane up at the former Echidna Security Team Officer's chest, crushing the blaster rifle he held against him.

"Stay here, Christian," Lemeans said cooly, but with a flex of anger.

Lemeans saw the echidna's face cringe as if acid burned him. "I'm not taking anymore selfish orders from–"

"Listen well, boy...!" Lemeans held his embolden pause until Christian's even stare sobered some. "You're wife is at the bottom of something, Christian. If it wasn't for her and her brother being taken, we wouldn't have been freed because the message our saviors came to find involved your family." Lemeans saw his words struck the chord he was aiming to hear from Christian's eyes. "They've helped us, now you help them with what you know." Closing the small distance between them, Lemeans placed his head on Christian's. "Stay here; cover the escape." And with a fast turn to cut off any idea to argue with him, the leopard was beating his cane out of the plane. He didn't turn to see Christian stunned or even stiff with grief. Not even to hear if he said goodbye.

Now he was on the hunt for another echidna; one he knew was possibly by now seeing the already unfolding situation just beyond the last cluster of fleeing mobians. Lemeans already knew how far the girl wolf had to travel, and weighing in that she was getting further away from the pack, crimped his gut harder, bringing on a sudden fear that filled his inner conscience, yelling at him to limp faster. Why this was all tugging at his mind now he couldn't fathom, nor did he care. His right hand passed the blaster pistol to his left; the crimson fur of Knuckles' back was starting to stiffen from his muscles readying to propel him forward–he had seen the girl and the mobian she was struggling to support. Lemeans' breathing was elevated, his pulse rate echoing in his ears...his right hand inching up to his breast pocket. Was he going to make it? Could he make in even if he gave out a longer stride?

His right hand slammed against Knuckles' chest atop his white crest, stopping the Guardian right before his moment to run. Looking down in surprise, the echidna darted his head over to see Lemeans' eyes fixed to his like steel. Between his chest and Lemeans' palm, scratching against his silk red fur was a paper envelope. Not taking the hint, or in Knuckles case, taking it and throwing it back, he tried to push forward, never budging a muscular inch from the leopard's forceful hand pressing against his chest, his eyes wide in a gaze that was more haunting than commanding.

"Do you remember that little saying I asked you this morning?" Lemeans' asked, his voice stern in a tone like he was asking for a new friend.

Knuckles strayed his eyes to the girl slaving to keep her pace...the bots were fast approaching. "If–if..."

Lemeans' finished where the Guardian was stammering:

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple?"

The pressure was rotting at his brain, Knuckles looking on, puzzled but anxious.

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple, then he reads a book." Lemeans turned his head slightly to see the girl and the ebbing bots behind her. "If a _worm_ eats an apple, then he reads a _book_!" he struggled to repeat, driving his attention back to the echidna in front of him. He never felt or thought but his face had gone pale in pleading. "Knuckles, remember this when you get to Edgewood," he said grievously. "The ferret you saw get killed yesterday...Justin!?" –he saw Knuckles nod, his pose had weakening from his ready state to bolt–"His father is a trusted friend of mine. I can't tell you what he does, or how he does it, but I trust you to deliver this envelope to him." Lemeans' gaze left the Guardian's awestruck countenance, descried the laboring girl's, then pulled his head back around. "It's _dire_ that you hand this off. Friends of mine and some of St. John's are in serious danger."

"Why me!?"

"Because I trusted someone a _long_ time who you resemble very much." The short pause felt like an eternity had gone by two fold. "He was an echidna...like you. Very much like you. Not in fur or body, but in purpose, resolve and soul." Did he understand? "Okay?..." The gulp wasn't assuring but he couldn't have everything. "And when you deliver the message and these people, you forget about me, and you forget about what you saw here. You keep it to yourself and away from the ones you love. Do you understand me?"

Knuckles clutched the paper at his chest but held true to Lemeans' hand. "What you are doing?" he asked in a soft, almost quivering tone.

The way Lemeans' said it, softer, almost breathing it, but in a tone of vain Knuckles never knew could be conceived in a voice, made the Guardian loosen his grip to the leopard's hand:

"My sentence...for all my deeds."

His pivot around to the north took his cold stare away from Knuckles, leaving the chill they both felt hanging in the hot arid heat. Taking the pistol back in his right and working his wooden cane with sheer will power, Lemeans maneuvered his stare at the girl. Her pointed ears could be seen; the prairie dog she had across her shoulder; the bots closing behind them. Four steps and five landings with his cane saw the last mobian pass him to freedom. His strides were increasingly harder to muster. But the girls blue eyes were becoming clear to his. Stopping, he looked back to Knuckles, finding the young echidna giving out his motivating hands to help the last refugee's. For Lemeans that was all he could see him; his white mitts waving in the air while his red fur glimmered in the X-ray heat.

The girl's labored breathing flowed to his ears, beckoning him to turn his attention to her. His eyes fell on the closing Eggbot, its broadsword rasing over its head with both hands, ready to cut her and the mobian down.

Dropping down across his cane, Lemeans grunted as he desperately tried to lower his injured left leg at the knee, springing his right leg behind him all the while placing his right forearm over his left wrist that held his cane like a supporting poll in a shrine. Closing his left eye and focusing his right down the post sight of Hershey's pistol, his finger stroked the trigger as gently as he could. The lone shot kicked from his hand...sailing to the bots' head where upon the driving inertia of the bolt knocked the driod backwards, its legs leaving the ground, its whole body still moving forward from its own momentum until it landed on the dirt plain, tumbling over itself until it lifelessly ceased to move.

The next Eggbot that his wandering eyes targeted came just to the left of the one he'd slain, possessing nothing but its arms and legs. A slight adjustment in its direction just by moving his right foot over slightly and Lemeans pulled his index finger back twice, both rounds landing square at the torso but having the second shot cause the dead tumble of the bot to the ground.

"Lemeans!" cried out the girl. He didn't see that she'd struggle beside him, and still moving. He was going to tell her to keep going, tell her she doesn't need to worry about him but to go. It was, though, the prairie dog helping her push his own weight, his left leg bleeding profusely from a large gash that claimed his ragged blue jeans over his tan, now blood soaked fur coat, that looked to Lemeans.

"Go child...go–don't...don't look back."

Eyes forward, and finger ready at the trigger, his training from ten years past came to him painstakingly slow. Twisting to the right lined up a Eggbot posed to touch off its plasma arm. Lemeans fired off a shot but to his greater anxiety it only smudged the bots' paint. Taking better care over his cane and left arm, his second shot landed just above the chest, spinning the bot over in its termination.

And behind it came the terror he was waiting for. An Eggbot with a plasma launcher riding over its shoulder exhumed itself from the thinly spread group assaulting Lemeans. The bot stopped, Lemeans twisting further to the right to get a better shot at him, halting suddenly when the twinging burn of his left leg grabbed him to cease. His thigh cried in pain, begging him to reposition his weight, but he couldn't listen. With his eyes watering, his arm starting to quiver, he could only force the order for his finger to squeeze–

The blaster bucked in his hand and the bolt sliced at the bots' left arm, its launcher aimed at the transport until the driving shot spun him around, pointing the tube at its comrades that were changing their assault to Lemeans. And the launcher rocketed a red plasma orb at the ground, thundering a blast that erupted dirt, fire and robotic pieces in the air.

But the explosive force was too close to Lemeans. Under the added weight his cane snapped under him, releasing its support and sending its master to the quaking ground. He could hear noises. A ringing pitch at first but then it faded to light droplets of metal landing on the very ground beside him. Specs of dirt had lodged in his eyes, fighting the fiercest battle between tears and his eyelids to open. His heart was beating faster than he ever knew it could. Then he heard a whining pitch.

The struggle to open his eyes favored his sight to see the girl getting helped on the ramp and in the wake of the transport was the sign its engines were firing up–jet wash was starting to kick up the loose–

He felt heavy, running footsteps pounding up to him, making him roll over in haste, finding that the pistol was still attached to his right hand, bringing it up to level three shots at a green Eggbot that was nearly on top of him. When it fell, it nearly crushed his leg.

Using what was left of his cane, Lemeans climbed to his feet, placing as much of his weight on his right leg to try to hop–falling quickly as soon as he tried. And when his senses became attuned again, he found himself seeing a bot sprinting through the lingering dust cloud he helped stir up, broadsword in its hands. Taking his cane and jutting it to the Mobian soil, he stood as fast as he could, bringing the pistol around and aimed the front sight at center mass before squeezing the trigger. The shot went wide, missing the bot completely. Working for a second, Lemeans jerked the trigger back this time, but his body turned cold when the pistol didn't buck in his hand. He forced the trigger back again...and all was still. Turning the pistol briefly over, he looked at it with a mild disappointment that boardered closely to grief. His peripheral vision heightened, descrying the charging Eggbot, its sword posed for an underhand slice from its right side.

Yet, from seeing this, something sang in his mind to turn around, to drop the pistol as he slowly limped around, that something even telling him to drop his snapped cane, like he was discarding his worldly possessions and letting Mobius have them for charity. He didn't want to see it coming. The tension in his mind, yelling, screaming for him to run trembled immensely through his body. Deep down his primal instincts for survival were unraveling in his gut. It forced to him to take a step with his right, to drag his long ago shattered leg when he was just ten years old, climbing a tree; remembering the call of his mother crying up to him. He didn't listen until he fell.

Maybe that was why he wasn't panicking, dragging himself away from the fright, the apprehensive anticipation. His dilated eyes focused on the open ramp of the _Turbo-Lifter_. It hadn't risen. He tried to wave his hand up, motioning for them to go ahead, but the fidgeting hand never left its place bestride his waist. The heavy pounding behind him grew angered, closer. The voice in his mind growing fainter with another drag of his left foot, single stride with his right. And yet he breathed normally. Not even a pant in desperation left his dry lips.

His last step saw to his eyes shutting in defeat, shooting open in sheer pain when his back muscles caved viciously in a sharp spasm of pain, and his chest cracking open with violet blood spurting from the rammed sword that jutted from his breast plate. Lemeans' urge to breath was met with his teeth chattering, his lungs wrenching to flex for air, finding the initial reflex conceding into a moaning gurgle. His muscles were fighting his will power to surrender, calling upon Mobius to help him settle to the ground in the dripping pool of his life's elixir beneath him. The bot saw to this, Lemeans spurting up blood from his mouth when the driod twisted the sword in his chest and yanked it out from his back, taking the leopard's freewill from his body. But yet it was the sword holding him upright, watching his knees buckle the instant the pain gripped his mind and smashed his brain and him to the tan floor of Mobius.

"_Rose_bud..." he gurgled in a faint whisper, rolling over like a tossed linen from a bed onto his left side, gasping for air, but none inflating his drowning lungs. Every beat of his heart became slower, muffled, feeling this from the single beats intensifying the throes of his throbbing chest wall. Then the pain began to fade with the lightness of a gentle touch of a feather. But his mind had to have been drifting, perhaps explaining why he repeated something so significant to the hot, smoked air around him. "Rose_bud_," he trembled out, still in a whisper, but maturing into a whimper. A ringing sound resounded with it, his eyes looking forward, seeing the transport was starting to move while its ramp closed...the bot charging towards it with its blood ridden sword, Lemeans' mind smiling knowing it was futile. "I'm coming Rosebud," he fought to say, still holding his knowing smile. "I'm coming too, Cookie."

And he was smiling when darkness took hold of the spark in his eyes.

* * *

Christian was close to squeezing the trigger of the rifle. His right eye was centered on the scope, centering the crosshair on the bot. He fidgeted. The _Lifter_ picked up speed. The ramp was closing with a aghast groan.

A white mitt gently weighed the rifle down away from Christian's face.

The perspective brought on his tears, watching the sealing of the ramp thin the outside world into a dimmed light...watching Lemean's hunched over body blink out with it as a speck in the tan world they were leaving; straying a hand up over his head to hang on to the static line when the plane angled up in its climb. And to his great bewilderment, all had become silent, save for the heaving engines. No shouts of triumph, no applause of thanks...and worst to him, no sighs of great relief. The whole compartment just laid silent.

"Christian..."

He didn't turn his head, holding his fixed, harsh stare of remorse at the closed ramp.

"Christian," said Knuckles again, laying his mitt on the brown echidna's left shoulder. This got him to turn, but sullenly. And even then none of them spoke. Christian just laid his eyes on the floor, searching for a empty spot to sit amongst the closely huddled mass he helped to free. Yet he still didn't feel victorious. Finding a nook on the red canvas bench, he waded his way cautiously, placing the rifle on the floor after fingering the safety and sat down. Then he finally sighed.

"Knuckles," called out Hershey, leaning her head over from the raised cockpit entrance.

The Guardian stepped carefully in any spot his shoes could fit in while holding on to the static line for support, crossing the bay tediously and bracing the narrow walls to climb the four steep steps, and peering into the cockpit. "We need to go back for Sonic," he said, finding the request more of a reminder.

"Tails has him," Rotor replied from the right seat. "And welcome aboard, Knux."

A disdained sigh broiled the air. "I'm going to beat the ever-living snot out of him for leaving us!" Knuckles bit down, however disciplined. "Where was he?"

"Chill, Knuckles," Rotor said almost scathing, which surprised Knuckles completely, never hearing the walrus actually lash out in anger. "Sonic had his own trouble...probably should thank him for leading away a few of those flying Eggbots." Knuckles watched Rotor check over his right shoulder, then the instrument panel, then back to him. "Where we going?" he asked very calmly, like their previous conversation never transpired.

Knuckles turned back inside the crowed bay. "David?"

The chipmunk stood up. "Yes," he answered breathlessly.

"Where's Edgewood?"

"On the edge of the Great Forest. About hundred miles east from here."

"How far east," Rotor asked, leaning over.

"I'm not sure, but I'm telling you its on the very edge of the forest."

Rotor turned to Hershey, who was almost dwarfed in the large padded, olive green seat she was sitting in, her right hand on the twin throttles and her left leveling the control yoke. "Looks like its dead reckoning flying from here. Bank east but keep a southernly direction."

She nodded, then looked behind her to Knuckles. "Better hold onto something. My turns can be a little jerky."

Placing his right foot on the right wall and bracing his back against the wall behind him, he felt his world roll slightly when Hershey banked the plane to the right. When the horizon became an inclining hill and the passing ground that was turning green from its tan state moved across the cockpit window like a picture on a moving slide, Knuckles drifted his entire gaze back to the bay. The stillness of everyone around him was astonishing to his silent-self. He didn't hear a cry of sorrow exhume from the huddled mobians. Their fur color ranged from black to pale, filling the spectrum with yellow, brown, and the occasional odd green or purple.

Yet his eyes were yearning with a color that wasn't at all present. He didn't realize this until he has asked himself why he'd taken great care into seeing every patch of fur and skin, species and seasoned face. Turning his head back inside the cabin, trying to ignore the background whine of the turbine engines, bracing himself for a jolt that seemed the plane hit a rock, Knuckles felt his heart sink when his mouth opened.

"Where's Julie-Su?"

* * *

My dear editor nearly cried from Lemeans' death. After the final cut, she just might go all the way. Personally, I love editing than I do writing now; I can go back and really clean up and refine the chapter and dialog better than trying to come up with on the very fly. But now, I've run out of edits to do, so I need to make some more.

Sara: Thank you for the very kind words. I'm doing my utmost best to keep the story flowing and powerful. I've been trying new things to keep the action moving, though I still have doubts if it's really needed. I'm also glad you've checked out Knuckles Haven. I'm there on the board and sometimes colaberate with other story writers. With that said, Knuckles Haven is where Aleutian first appeared and the sites creator pushing me to keep it going. Really they are the same story, but tamed down. So here, we get the full inner workings of my brain that's mostly geared for true life, while I have to write "censored" versions there. To find the fan-fan-art, look for the the art's page in the "fan's section" and find "Professor Ken," the same cool and incredibly talented and intelligent minded writer and reviewer here.

Azure Inu: Glad to see you review again and glad to see you are keeping up with my works. And thanks for your kind review (and letting me know I didn't fudge it up.)


	37. No Shore for the Oarsman

Hello all and welcome once more. I hope my absence hasn't diminished anyone from going away from this story. I do have to report that my writings have been slow, but I'm getting close to being done with this fan-fic novel. And I hope real soon!!

This chapter was spawned almost now two years ago, hard to believe. But as I got to it, it came very slow, almost painstakingly. I thought I knew how I wanted to approach it but that all went away when I arrived to finally writing it out. I'm crossing my fingers that as soon as I get the next chapter written out, the next few don't follow the path of this one in creation. The three main barriers that came with this one; how to start it, where to start it, and can I keep the voice I wanted to write this one all along. My dear friend Zycho32 got a sampling with this when I was rout with writer's block and in the middle of it after restarting from a long mind-vacation. He said he didn't see anything wrong in except I probably out did myself...and in course, you are trying to out do myself in keeping the same voice. Yep...that was it.

And it came out long...way longer than I wanted it to.

The title came from a song by the Kingston Trio, "Micheal Row Your Boat". The song struck something in me on the subject and tone this chapter was becoming. With it came the title...and the chapter itself.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Sonic character's in relation to rights creation, or ownership.

And in so being...enjoy, though some of you may not like what happens here.

* * *

**No Shore for the Oarsman**

By: Mauser

* * *

Dread; it slithered throughout her body, sparing no nerve, letting no strand of pink fur defend against the cold air inside the eerily calm ship. It was as if her skin was fully exposed to the elements of the corporeal world and her crushing thoughts that revisited her with every flicker of white light she was aiding in the descent toward. Maybe that was why she felt tormented? Not of descending towards it but watching the birth of the worming snakes of lightning course a path in the dark, aggressive blanket of clouds below her, sending long forgotten reflections from a region in her anatomy she thought she had hidden well within to subject her heart with the cruelness of its bleak irony.

For Julie-Su, it wasn't a figment of chance revenge or an enlightened moment of pathos that usually comes with the sense of satire, but of a lesson that her former ilk had taught her in the pursuit of embracing the way of life and faith she was born into. The lesson had a very basic element of understanding and, in fact, beauty to it that she was witnessing vanish under her perched position behind the controls of the _Freedom Fighter Special Mark Two_.She could almost recite the writing on the data-pad when she was only fourteen, pledging her body and mind to the cause of Technocracy: _There is a line where sunlight and darkness converge on the globe, causing day to fall away to night_. The simple term she faintly remembered was called the gray line. But at this moment of descent, her hands pushing the control yoke in doing so, seeing the pink, orange color fade from the heavy fluff of clouds, become replaced from gray, to blue, and quickly to blackness, it was the truer name of which she felt the weight crush her chest with the foreboding premonition she feared that she would witness in the very near approaching moment of time.

"_Terminator."_

Another snake of lightning flickered against the cockpit visor, tracing every contour of her face as if with a wandering torch of phosphor. It cauterized every gapping wound she felt was opened to the elements, trembling with the notion that more were being slashed open. _"Is Knuckles okay?"_ She was now wishing she had gone for him. But how would he take it knowing she had gone to save him instead of his people he was charged at birth to protect? Would he have disavowed their love because she held his safety higher than the lives of many? Could jealousy be deemed as a crime? It was a factor, no doubt, in her mind to either go and save her equal, or save _her_ people. It was with her our honesty and new found convictions, that at the moment she heard the transmission, her snap decision became that Knuckles would indeed never forgive her for at least taking the chance to save as many as possible.

"_Yeah, but look what he's doing?"_ she festered to herself optimistically, guiding an eye to a screen at the center of the console and watching the marker arrow heading hadn't shifted from it's straight course to the east. _"He's trying to save others..."_

She tried to push the argument that she was going after _their_ people. She tried to solidify the argument into an emboldened passion and truth towards principle. But why couldn't that simple argument become the preponderance of the evidence she needed to win the case? Why was the fear of Knuckles' touch fading away from her torn heart? The fear shouldn't even exist! She was doing what needed to be done. She was holding up the work her equal had fought to ensure would be seen through, even without his presence. His work...his charge.

And yet, with an upwards strike of lightning that could only have been seen from her high altitude in the stratosphere, the curve and backlighting of the instrument panel against the cockpit visor drew her face in the reflection...and split her smooth right cheek with a dark line that bolted in the realization of why she could sequester the churning throb of rejection from her true love.

She had forgotten him. In the trials of the past day she had already forgotten about him, but in a way, her heart hadn't. And it was why she was charging herself with the upkeep of Knuckles' endeavors in keeping to his families responsibilities.

"_Aleutian...how would he feel if Mathias' last act of sacrifice was all for nothing."_ If in the course of Aleutian hearing about the _Hawkings_' fate, what if she had gone for Knuckles instead of no one being dispatched to at least look for survivors: then all the tears they had shed in the past week would have been in vain, and her equal unknowingly placing the guilt on her because she placed his safety over his brother's attempts to find his way back home. And thus, losing his new found brother and never knowing who he really is.

"Should we go to _red_, Julie-Su?"

It was hard to believe that such a faint voice could shaken her from what felt like a troubled sleep, engulfed in a fearsome nightmare. But from over the steady vocal pitch of the lone engine that seemed to find the entrance to her triangular ear canals, the back pressure and even tremors feeding back to her hands and hopelessly numb feet sweating inside her boots and socks, the confidence from Ray's small voice had overpowered and conquered the ambient noise, and gladly, her baleful tugging conscience.

"Yeah," she replied, coming out as if she had returned from some far-flung reaches of a different world.

She felt it.

Squeezed around her and Ray like a horseshoe, the instrument panel exhumed a notion of safety only Ray was engulfed in. She watched the young, yellow furred flying squirrel jut his left hand like a hungry snake hitting on an unfortunate prey, touched a button just below the main radar screen, nestled amongst more buttons of it's ilk, and what Julie-Su had realized was the main source of light around her. The instrument panel's pale readings subdued to a dull red. Only the blinking mix of yellow, green, and a single blue nod lights told her that normalcy was still in command.

Right hand switching from its place on the lone throttle bar to the control yoke, Julie-Su drifted her cybernetic replacement arm to a touchscreen diagonal from her shoulder, tapping it to bring up it's option menu, which showered her face and tank-top-body-armored chest in a dull green light, and searched the commodities that acted as a border to the screen's edges. As her fingers were split inside her three fingered gloves, she worked her index finger astride her middle for her desired configuration: a punch for the heads-up-display; a select for altitude, elevation, pitch, speed, heading, course plot; then retrieving just as the reminder hit her, night vision that came to life in its green textures on a smaller screen that divided her and Ray just like the throttle board beside them. And when her fingers ceased their actions, a sallow flicker that expanded from top to bottom covered just a degree under a quarter of her sight to the rising, dark outside world. She could still see through it but she had to get past her mind reading the figures and information running inside their holographic cell that the onboard computer had lit on the cockpit window. They had just passed seventy-thousand feet, watching the beginning high prime numbers of the sixty-thousand descend. This all transpired to the left of the screen, showing what altitude she had just passed and what was soon to follow, eyeing the arrow that indicated the current status. To the right of the small, transparent display was the elevation pitch: _"two-thousand five hundred feet per minute."_ Pressing her left hand forward which seemed to strangle the left handle of the control yoke, her right finding the throttle bar to bring it back, slowing the engine, she felt her body become pressed further in the seat. The ladder readings dropped, showing a three-thousand foot per minute descent rate.

Above all this on the screen was a three digit reading of numbers in red to the right and another in green to the left. A press of her foot on the left rudder peddle produced an oscillating discomfort as the forward direction had shifted some, Julie only letting up when the two numbers matched. It was the G.P.S. It was the course of her apprehension.

"This is going to get bumpy real soon, fellas," she said dryly, never looking over her shoulder to the rear, but instead drifting her eyes to the rising clouds. They looked like a hilly land, the last quarter of the moon illuminating the crests and slops from the west. "Better tighten your straps."

Webbing screeched from behind, making her stray her head over her right shoulder to see Mighty tugging at his dual restraints with both hands from the weak backlighting. Doctor Quack's cream colored feathers were nothing more than a dark shade of pale, clutching his medical bag with one hand as he tightened the straps of the chest rig one by one with his other, his eye patch helping to darken one side of his face. Charmy, sitting to the Doctor's right, had his hands placed on his lap, staring out the cockpit window like he would if he was the middle child on a family hover-car trip.

Her emotions were still eating at her. She spawned a thought that she wished her inner-self could laugh at when her concerned eyes drifted to Victor. She imagined the crocodile bouncing around inside the cabin, slamming his head with one throw of the _Mark Two_ by her command, then jamming his tail with another. Such twisted thoughts would have made her deviously smile.

But she was glad to see him anchoring himself down on the seat with his belts in his position behind Quack and sitting to the right of Mighty. She was even happier to see that he'd stowed his headphones away.

Facing forward, she rolled her fingers before tightening her hand over the throttle bar, doing the same with her left hand over the control yoke. She looked across her left shoulder down the clouds, but found her eyes staring at the forward swept wing. They were indeed getting lower. Not only had the clouds' contours become more entrenched with hollows and valleys, but the humidity from the storm and the friction of the air moving across the wing was making a slim contrail on the tip, extending for more than ten feet before dissipating into the high altitude air.

"_Speed...what's the speed?" _

Glancing at the heads up display, she automatically brought the thruster back, bumping it with her wrist, wondering if it took her pulse and reveled her heart rate was pounding against her chest wall. They were gliding through the air at a brisk seven hundred miles per hour.

"Ray," she gently said. The young kid's face turned to her's. "Be ready on the spoilers when I tell you."

"Okay."

"Don't jam on them, got me?" she warned. "We don't want to loose any wings."

He shook his head, gulping as he did before facing to the outside and landing his left hand on the spoiler leaver just beside the throttle.

Taking in a long breath through her noise, and with it, narrowing her eyes that frowned her face just a degree to make her feel it, Julie-Su inched the control yoke forward. The horizon slowly climbed across the window, making the rising clouds act like a flooding watertable. A flash of lightning brightened the dark ink into a gray patch, diminishing just fast as the altimeter was falling. Fifty-thousand feet. Had her dwelling thoughts and instructions taken that long?

Shudders began to creep up her limbs, the yoke fighting her hold. "Spoilers, Ray," she struggled to say in a calm voice. She backed the throttle down, hearing the engine whine crescendo. If she'd back it down further, the engines would be idle, and where they were diving could possibly earn them a flame out. But their speed had jumped fifty and was climbing. Looking down at the throttle board, Ray's small hand was clutched on the smaller spoiler lever, meticulously bringing it back.

Seven-sixty-one; it hovered there.

"_Forty-thousand!"_

She felt herself leave the seat momentarily until she was slammed down back on it as if someone had thrust her shoulders to the floor. It was the upper level trough that was feeding the storm its energy to sustained its ferocity. Not long after the initial jolt that sent a electrifying pain through her spine, Julie-Su felt the yoke wanting to have a mind of it's own, tilting the ship to the left and arousing every pink hair strand to stand up on her body. She fought back almost instinctivly, leveling the _Mark Two _just for a brief moment until the slamming wind took back control, pushing the ship further over on it's right wing. A kick of the rudder peddle was all that was needed.

Thirty-thousand scaled by and the cloud cover looked as if the sea was just mere inches away. She strayed her attention to the speed indicator. They had lost over a hundred miles per hour, yet the controls still seemed stiff from the onslaught of air over the foil controls. And the shakes and shudders had intensified, making her replacement dread-lock bounce on the left side of her head, much less the rest of her toned anatomy.

But a different feeling was beginning to wash over her, dissolving the foreboding ire and dread she had come to befriend since she woke up this morning without Knuckles. Anxious? Could it really be that? Through the current heat of things, her muscles in her arms, and now legs, began to tire all of a sudden. The terror of the dead she might see floating on the water once they got below the storm along with the desire of getting to the last known relative bearing of the _Hawking_ came to her like being slowly soaked in a very warm bath.

How far were they? She forced her left hand to the display screen and punched in the distance-to-destination. Twenty-two miles and decreasing!

And the fluffy sheet of rolling clouds seemed like a jump away.

"Here we go, Ray!" she heard herself say in a charged voice. "Help me hold the course and ship level. This is going to take both of us!"

He never strayed his eyes from his heads-up panel. "I'm with ya, Su! But boy this is a fight."

"Why I brought you along," she confessed proudly. "Figured you might want some new excitement."

Either he nodded giddily on his own or it was the jumping shake that had scored a piece of equipment–sounded like a tool chest–to crash to the deck in the rear open compartment. But Ray was egging for the dive into the unknown. It certainly seemed that way. To Julie, the sheet of clouds that her mind had been describing the whole time she had first laid trained eyes on had changed shape with the sensation of falling into a large comforter on a very large, welcoming bed. Her eyes unknowingly widened at the mere thought of this, and her body exploded with this feeling. Then the bed had no mattress. And the serene view of the heavens sailing in the dark smeared out from the cockpit window and collapsed into a foggy cast of black steam.

The heads up display seemed smaller and farther away than the foot and a half distance. Twenty-eight thousand feet! Elevation pitch at a feverish four-thousand feet per minute. _"Speed?"_ Six hundred and climbing.

"More spoilers, Ray," she said, finding her voice was trembling through the shaking of the ship.

"It's almost to the floor!"

And her mind flashed to the rear of the _Mark Two _and the wings. The extended panels must have been fully up, making the ship look like it was dragging a cone, or a hoopskirt around its engine cavity while the wings had the effect of growing protective razors spreading finely across the wing area. She tried to look out the window to see if the wing was shaking but the intense cloud block brought visibility to nothing.

Then the control yoke in her left hand began to move on its own, but it didn't feel like it was the winds' doing. It was Ray. "What are you doing?"

"Check the artificial horizon, Su," he said calmly when she thought he might bite back at her.

She turned to the digital, circular gauge that housed a crude figure of a plane tittering on a ball cut in half horizontally by a light shade of green on the top and ink black on the bottom. The wings of the craft were tilted far over to the right, and Ray had nearly rolled the yoke over to the left to compensate and bring the wings level. She didn't even feel the craft roll it was so quick and motionless. _"Rely on your gauges, girl!" _she about exclaimed to herself as her eyes met the altimeter: twenty-thousand..._nineteen-thousand_! Then she spotted the pitch indicator, and soon realized in sinking horror that they were nearly in a nose dive: six thousand feet per minute.

"_Stupid!"_ she shouted to herself this time with a corse, strained voice, pulling the yoke to her stomach. _"You just got yourself vertigo!"_

"Ray?" she voiced aloud in panic.

"I'm helping," he resounded back in the same tone, nearly standing on the rudder peddles to pull the control yoke back.

He must have seen the gauges too. Possibly was even more attuned to them than Julie-Su.How long had it been since she flown in bad weather? Two years, maybe three? How long has it been since she has flown in _really_ bad weather? _"Never like this."_ She groaned. Least not to let Ray know her inner thoughts to unsettle him.

To both their inner relief, the fast descent had slowed to a mere two-thousand feet per minute, placing them just above nine-thousand feet and dropping. But the cloudy picture of the outside hadn't lifted.

Julie checked the speed: five hundred and eighty and gladly dropping.

"Let off on the spoilers, Ray."

"Don't have to tell me twice," the young flying squirrel bolstered.

And then trickled in a voice she so didn't want to hear. "Are we there yet?"

She could've given Victor the satisfaction–and to her very own but grinning surprise–that they had notched over thirteen miles in the short, but terrifying, lose of control of their equilibrium and thus, the _Mark Two_. _"Only eight or so miles to go. But where's the sea?"_

It had to be somewhere in the worse soup she's flown in. "Victor, you were getting on my good side in keeping your jaws shut!" she managed to snarl back. For once, something felt normal in a great way.

A meek laugh came from beside her. "I didn't know you had space on your _good side_ for him?" Ray was hopelessly mocking, but she was hopeless in defending herself, turning to him just to simper her reply. What she saw in him though was an alarm of curiosity.

"Hey, Su, I don't see any lightening," he said.

She faced forward, then squirmed her head over to the left side of the cockpit. He was right! The light show she'd seen during their initial descent wasn't around them anymore. Checking the night vision screen, it was awash in green, telling her the residual light that had been absorbed in the clouds was going to make the search a little more tedious once they broke the cloud level.

Seven-thousand feet...and like a lifting vial, there it was; the moon light was just strong enough to show the swells that capped white foam like blurred stars on the surface. The night vision showed this very well on the monitor, almost to the point of uselessness. How her eyes traced all of this without her head jarring from what seemed like a mortar case was a feet she hardly had time to register as a minor achievement in the shaking, bucking ship. But gazing passed all the electronic aids, her natural eyes caught what none of the monitors had told her. Small dimples had pelted the window, becoming streaked when the hash wind grabbed the water droplets and slid them passed her.

"Now it rains," Ray seemed to say in a blunt tone of agony.

Julie glanced over to him, her face looking as if a bad light had clicked on somewhere within the stiff soldier. "How's your V–T–O–L coming?"

A heavy snort made her stray her attention and concerned face to a sneer that faded just as quick as Victor's remark. "Now she asks him."

She drew her visage closer to Ray, conveying comfort and confidence. They needed him to have it, now, more than ever.

"The–the computer can handle it...right?" he softly said, hoping the whine of the _Mark Two _and the pelting of the rain would shadow his question from the others.

Julie slightly shook her head with her eyes wandering back to the control panel, touching the screen with the night vision tuned to it and selecting the forward-looking-infrared. The screen blinked from grainy green to an engulfing white, only hinting at the angry ocean's contour with what appeared to be shadows. "Ray, this could be a little tricky," she said in an ebbing, concerned voice. "Yeah, the computer can handle most of it, but you need to keep her steadier than what the computer can do." Bringing her eyes back to him, she did relinquish a meager smile for Ray's encouragement. "At least you won't be fighting it to keep it upright."

The flying squirrel rolled his eyes and snapped his head back. "That's what I meant, Julie-Su. I can take care of the rest."

Shaking her head, she broke into a smile before tuning her eyes back to the instrument panel. The HUD readings were gracious now, unlike the flight: speed slowing below three-hundred, altitude settled below three-thousand feet. But as soon as comfort had creased into psyche, a hard slam bounced everyone and everything inside. Julie's engraved stiffness of her countenance returned just as fast as the ripples from the jolt struck ever fiber in her body.

"Radar?" she asked with a degree of ire, though she had not wanted it to come out that way.

"Clear," chorused Ray, Julie watching his hand fall the to the throttle platform. "Taking out the spoilers, Su."

How could she forget. "Yeah." Then she felt a shiver of a reminding echo run through her spine. "Watch the temp, Ray. If the engine get's too cool from the water–"

"Yeah, I know, Julie," Ray cut in, however gentle, lifting the spoiler lever to the close postion, "we flame out and we're dead-stick."

His rebuttal kept her starring at the young, yellow furred squirrel, finding her heart yearning for the hope he learned his flying skills through Tails or Rotor and not by experience. But no, she remembered; he'd once been a prisoner; had once been innocent. Mighty had done the noblest of deeds in keeping Ray as sheltered as the presiding chaotic world would allow. Was this why she still felt angry, torn within herself? Was she undermining a strife so hard from friends that she was so thankful to even have, that she felt she was using them all in keeping Knuckles' heart? Was she–

Red! The crimson color flickered on the white screen just an eye blink away. But it wasn't there when her instincts locked her full face onto it. Right hand on the throttle, pushing it gently up for an extra push from the engine; left gripping the yoke like strangling out her feelings. She didn't breathe for the longest; waiting, watching...grinder her teeth for another red flicker or flash to come across the FLIR. The ship rocked! Her left wrist turned downwards, correcting the wind's eagerness to play with the _Mark Two_.

And there it was; dismal to the average onlooker but like a smile showing itself in a crowd of deadpan faces, Julie-Su witnessed her cue to inhale a fresh gulp of oxygen. "I just saw something on the FLIR," she nearly exclaimed.

"Changing my screen to it now, Julie," came Ray's quick reply and moving right hand. It seemed like a second coming of the Ancient Walkers had come to their little domain of a cockpit. "Wish Rotor would make it possible to adjust the intensity of these screens. Man this is bright!"

Julie wavered her head over towards Ray. "Keep your mind on your job, Ray, and stow your complaints till we get back."

"I'm just annotating out-loud–"

"Ray," she lightly scolded, fixing her eyes on her white-washed screen.

"Okay," he said, holding a short pause. "So what are we looking for."

Stabbing the yoke forward from the sudden pitch-up of the nose, Julie replied, "It's a red smudge on the screen when it appears," –throwing the control yoke towards her stomach; kicking in some right rudder, aiming the nose with the infrared lens just underneath it for a better sweep– "we're still a little far out–"

Ray busted in with a yelp. "I saw it, I saw it, I saw it! Something is bobbing in the water!"

But it faded from Julie just as her eyes fell back upon the screen. Before long, red shown like a dot in a pool of lithium. Then came a second...then a third.

"We're still a ways out, but we're closing in."

Checking the distance from the course plotted on a screen that felt like it was way on the other end of the control panel, they still had about five miles to go. _"But the current and swells could be carrying them further to us...if there is anyone."_

Shaking her head then rotating it back behind her shoulder, she let the soldier in her become partially unglued. "Victor–get yourself ready for a swim!"

Belts clanged around the fuselage as Julie watching in the red lit compartment, not one but several bodies rise up from the seats.

"Where's the light?" came Quak's voice, "I need to search for my medical instruments."

"Hold tight," Julie-Su said, facing front but carrying her voice to the rear, "we still have to slow down and we really have to search. For all we know, we could be seeing fires."

"In this rain?" Mighty's voice quizzed.

Bobbling her head, and not from the shaking of the ship, Julie replied, "Yeah, whatever."

Her hand then dropped back the throttle some more; her eyes lighting up when the FLIR started to look like a constellation in a space only exempted for one. She kept her face on it until she felt her chair tilt slightly back when someone came between the two seats. Looking over her shoulder, Mighty's features glowed beside her from the wash of white light from the infrared screens.

"Geeze, it's a soup." His eyes must've just then fell on the screen. "Whoa."

"Yeah, I know," the pink echidna groaned, felling her chair again move, seeing Mighty's head turn to the rear.

"Hey Charmy, better start shrinking yourself."

"Better tell him to bring a coat, too," Julie snuffed partially under her breath.

And then, save for Vector and Charmy's movements, the _Mark Two_ lay silent. Only the engine and the rain resounded inside. Enough to jar Julie's nagging worries to her throat.

"Ray," she said, turning to him. The young boy's eyes met hers, letting concern fill her voice, and for once, making it soft. "Ray, whatever happens, you keep your mind here, and only here. Don't look back, but don't hesitate to shout if things get a little hairy." He nodded, his face dissolving from anything resembling the courageous boy that had come along. "Okay," she said gratefully.

And again, there was silence.

"It's not fire," Mighty said in low voice. "I'm guessing debris, but I can't see any fire outside the window."

"Thanks, Mighty," replied Julie, "and I do hope most of that is debris." Her heart ached at the notion if all that churning in the ocean were drowning echidnas.

But then her heart slowly simmered, cooling and healing for a fleeting second that felt as if a year had gone by. All thanks to a whisper from Mighty. "Thanks, Su." And he was gone before she could at least convey something to him from her warm, caring eyes. He knew what she was doing; he knew he had an ally in Ray's best interest.

"Alright everyone," she rallied, "hold on to your tails–we're switching to hover."

* * *

"STEN_SON_!"

Her next gulp of precious air had almost swallowed in water when a swell from the turbulent waters nearly forced Lar-Na completely under. Holding Vickers unconscious body with her outstretched left arm while clinging to her's and Stenson's life by his soaked and _ripping_ cloak with the other, she could feel every ache and burn from her shredding muscles. Yet, she held true to Stenson, as she had been for close to twenty five years; even as the swell pushed all three echidnas aloft further from the rest of the floating debris around them.

Like that which her only beloved savior was lying upon. Between the rain, the rolling pudgy breaks, and the heavy overcast of the dwindling storm, hindering what was left of the pale moon to shine down, Lar-Na could still at least see the darker shadows of her Stenson, the bobbing of crates and tangled masses which had better water displacement, pitching all around her and reminding her that the sea had _yet_ to claim them.

So she kept at what she had been doing when silence came and the bow of the _Hawking_ had slid under the heavy waves; screaming out to Stenson...to wake him up.

"STENSON! WAKE-UP!" His back didn't move. Only the pitching from the small chopping swells hitting the plank gave the now unconscious Field Marshal any movement. He looked so venerable to her. "Stenson, please, wake-up–"

"_Milady_."

The voice was very week, almost nonexistent. She held her breath. Would she cough? Would she hear something again? Her eyes didn't leave the hard, black spot on Stenson's back.

"Mi–Milady Lar-Na."

Her outstretched left arm began to slowly recoil, relieving the heavy strain, adding strength to her neck to turn her head. She could see white behind some very weakened, scared eyes.

"Vickers," she gasped with a heavy, but relieved breath. "Vickers, can you move any?" She could see his lips were a quiver with movement. "Vickers?" Three bobs in the water and prayer in her heart for salvation. "Vickers, say something–keep focused soldier."

His voice protruded out like a pin on a rock face. "Ma–Ma'am, I feel something tugging–on–my robe...what is it?"

"It's me, Corporal. It's me," Lar-Na assured in a laboring voice. If she had a cough attack now, none of them would survive. "Vickers, can you move?" she asked as clear and calm as she could.

"I–_I_–I feel something _pulling_ me–_me_ done, ma'am."

"It's your cybernetic leg, Vickers," she said, her voice showing the sign of losing her control. "Can you move!? I need you to move, Vickers."

Silence washed over him like the small wake that bounced what natural dreads he had left to give to technocracy. "My–" His voice faltered, Lar-Na hearing him spitting water out from his mouth. "My leg...it's–it's not...mo...moving. My chest...it's burning from the inside...mi..._milady_."

Vickers had unknowingly described her right side just above her navel. "Vickers, listen to me. Can you grab my arm." She prayed he could. Her fingers were starting to go numb, rapping them tightly around whatever fabric looked good at the time to snag just before his cybernetic leg drug him down. No response–she could make out something glossy on the left side of his face. "Vickers?"

"I'm trying, Milady–"

"Well, try harder damn it, or I'm going to loose you, Vickers," she spat out in letting go of something. "Now move your–" She heard a sob come from his direction, ceasing her voice just as fast if Stenson were to shout at _her_. Now more than ever she wanted him to. She gained control of her voice, swallowing the acid feeling of the saltwater lodged in the throat of over the overbearing wife of a Dark Legion Field Marshal. "Vickers," she began, like testing the air if it could handle her tone, "Vickers, please, I need you to grab my arm and help me pull you in."

She looked back, tracing her right arm up Stenson's back where somewhere her hand was strangling a piece of the fabric, then swung her head back to what she now realized was a very injured boy. "Vickers, can you still hear me?"

"_Ye_–yes."

What a wonderful sound, though the weak sobbing could've stopped. "Good...that's great, Corporal. Now can you, please–" She felt her voice falter from the mother she so wished she could've been. "Vickers, please, just wrap your hand around my arm where you feel the tugging on your robe." Silence. No movement. Then a hard shudder of another sob. "Vickers, please..."

"Milady, if–if you sto–_stop_ crying, I will try again."

"_Me,"_ echoed the clear voice in her head. Was she the one all this time? "Okay," she said, feeling something that felt like composure worming through her system. "Okay, now come on, Vickers. You can do it."

"It...it hurts, Milady."

"I know, Vickers, but you soldier the pain out and aid me." Her eyes met his sagging, battered pupils. "Vickers, please, just touch my arm, wrap your fingers around it and hold on. I know they're both there."

"Oh_h, _t_hhaaaattss _comf_ortiiinng_g. I just feel_ num_b all ov–ov_eer_r."

Did she release a smile. It felt like it. "You're not the only one."

His head was starting to sag. She felt her heart eclipse to sheer panic.

Then her eyes snatched a vison that froze her heart into the next life. "VICKERS!" she shouted, staring past him at the rolling shadow that blotched out the looming, dark grey overcast horizon. "Vickers, grab a hold of my arm now!" she shouted with a flexed voice. The shadow was creeping closer now, white foam outlining the crest of the coming swell. Her scream came with what strength she had left.

"VICKERS!–"

She tilted her head up in time before she swallowed her voice and the saltwater; fought her fingers to keep hold of Stenson. Her body pitched up from the undercurrent, then was pushed forward into the plank, slamming the pit of her arm against it, only to be pulled away when the swell had moved on in search for land or another floating corpse she could not see. But she held on to Stenson, staying afloat and alive until perhaps the next one came. That she knew was going to be the last with her arms being–

Her left arm...it felt relieved–

She nearly screamed in pure agony when her eyes darted across to her left shoulder, finding it was not holding onto anything.

"VICKERS!"

Her head moved as fast as her eyes could keep up, but she couldn't descry the young echidna boy. Twisting right then left, she found her surroundings deserted. "No!" she shouted at the viciously championing sea. Options flickered straight to her mind behind her voice. They all rolled in so quickly that she didn't give time to discern all the logical ones, letting the illogical ring with an intensity that sided with the fierce passion.

She released her fingers...gulping in her best, deepest lung full of air she could, feeling the fabric of Stenson's cloak leave her touch. She was about to slide under. She was about to call her on arms to swim.

But her right arm was snatched just below the elbow with an iron grip. The shock forced her head over, only to glimpse at a large dark object trying to pull her in.

"Lar-Na," came Stenson's weak, but projected voice, "I–I got you."

She exhaled her grief, taking her passion with it. "I lost Vickers! I'm trying to go after him–"

"No, stop!" he said, cutting her off from any expedition. She heard him groan for a moment. "Lar-Na...you'll–you'll go down with him, dearest."

She thought to counter with a vengeance; to tell him she'd been holding onto his limp body for maybe the past twenty, thirty minutes...but reason and the new lust to survive came to her. "Stenson," she now said under a tearing voice.

"Lar-Na, I got–_erhhaahh–_"

She saw him recoil at his chest, simultaneously pulling her in but with a weaker grip than when he had snatched out from the clutches of Neptune. "Stenson!" she shrilled. "What's wrong?"

But he only responded with a harsher groan. Gaining courage over pain, she attempted to pull herself up on to the plank. But a howling noise restricted her, followed by a downpour of wind that raked the very ocean that was trying to swallow them. The wind turned to a roar, then to a sharper whine. Yet, Lar-Na was still trying to pull herself closer to her beloved; trying to be by his side if the wind was calling for their death. She wanted to be lead with him to Aurora if not waiting. She wasn't going to let him–

Her eyes were forced closed when light struck down at her pupils and made them constrict when she wasn't ready. She could feel her chest riding against the edge of the plank; she could hear Stenson's moans of pain...but the invading, flooding light froze every fiber of her being.

Gradually, and painfully with the misting saltwater slamming at pupils, she began to open her eyes. At first her vision was beyond the typical waking blur. Yet the light began to sweep it away, illuminating why Stenson had recoiled inwards. He was clutching his chest. His face, bloodied and stained, flexing the muscles all around his visage as he breathed with the pain.

A roving beam of light reenforced the one that had lit up their dark surroundings, calling Lar-Na's eyes to peer upwards. But she couldn't make out what was bearing down on them. The light was so blinding, along with the harsh whine intensifying the whole ordeal, and the onslaught of the wind churning the water like a living jagged rock formation. She got her free hand up to shield her eyes, but it still didn't allow for textures that overpowered the lights.

Then her mind halted. Between losing her last ounce of freewill to death, or struggling to keep it, she had ceased all thoughts of survival when a sliver of light began forming a line downwards, followed by one adjacent to it with a darkened space before it began to take a three sided square shape before broadening to that of a rectangle. Almost as soon as her mind came to shout out what was happening above them, her eyes seemed to twinkle when she saw a silhouette appear at the edge of the now formed ramp. She nearly wanted to cry when she saw another small silhouette slide behind the first.

But Stenson's agony filled voice reversed her joy to sorrow.

* * *

"Ready for the plunge?" Mighty asked Vector, looking up as he spoke, for the large panel that housed the rescue pulley. Being mindful not to use his known strength to rip the lever to pieces that hung close to the large, flushed panel, the red and black armadillo grabbed the black handle and yanked it down. Electric servos seemed to sneer at him when the small sprockets on the inside lifted the door and then slid towards the nose of the _Mark Two_, exposing the main coiled steel cable and a five fingered claw. Mighty's expression melted to confusion. "Uh, where's the basket thing?"

The crocodile next to him, just a few short breaths ago was looking over the edge of the lowered ramp, turned and faced something that Mighty should have had etched on his face. Utter worry. "Hey, Doc! We've gotta problem. Your patients ain't gonna like the ride up."

Across the cabin and over the seats, Doctor Quak could be seen with the aid of Charmy searching and plucking medical gear out from pulled heavy white drawers, seemingly paying no attention to them.

"Hey, Charmy, you're needed outside," said Mighty, shifting his voice around.

The yellow-jacket bee with his aviator's soft leather helmet popped upon the call of his name. "I'm helping the doc, guys."

Julie-Su's voice seemed to have tumbled out of the cockpit like an angry mother on the march to punish her mischievous child:

"I'll be over there in a jiff, Charmy. Get out and fly around, see if you can find anymore survivors?" The whole ship seemed to have frozen when they heard her pause for a breath. Then returned the tyrant in pink fur: "Is Vec out the door yet!?"

"Are 'ya gonna loose some height first?" Vector retorted in a nervous, mocking voice. Just seeing the water at their present height made his body quake with the coming hard slap of it against his skin. And with another look down to the water his painful apprehension dissipated.

"Hey, Mighty–tell home-boy back there if his Royal tail isn't out of the door by the time I hit the water, you're throwing him out."

Mighty could only turn in confusion and surprise when he saw Vector leap out off the lowered ramp. He fell with what little drops of rain water that had clung to the smooth hull of the _Freedom Fighter Special_, only to experience a sensation that boardered between euphoric and sheer terror that he could only describe as his organs trying to shift up from the fall while the positive gravity pulled him down. For the while, he seemed to be suspended in his own plane. He watched with nondescript eyes the toiling ocean rise up to him in the illumination of the ship's searchlights, stiffening his back to make his body become a crescent, straightening his large, powerfully built tail before crossing his arms, his hands at the tops of his shoulders as he held his breath, tilting his head up just before–

Impact came when the homicide of pure, unrestrictive sound, suffocated into the muffled rush of water attacking his scaly skin. He threw his arms to his sides, thus stopping his almost instant plummit to the bottom. Gathering his surroundings with the light that came drifting from above like the undercurrents, Vector began to thrust his tail from side to side, boosting him to the surface like he had just jumped up with a spring in his legs.

His head broke through to the mist filled air from the _Mark Two's_ main engine's downward thrust to keep it level, watching this before he swung his head and then body to the west, paddling his arms and swimming as fast as he could to the girl he could see trying hard to cling to a pile of wood with a large lump atop it. Three strokes later he could see it was an echidna...and a familiar one.

"Help!"

Vector had to narrow his eyes to keep the blowing mist from hampering his sight completely, following the crying voice he just heard with his last few strokes. "Just hang-on!" he barely shouted as he tried not to swallow in any water. He had one arm pounding the surf right after the other.

Reaching for the heavy plank that he was sure was a piece of furniture, he edged his way across with his hands to the girl. When he got close enough to see her soaked blue fur from the neck up, and her tired, heavy eyes, all the male in him could do was smile.

"Hi, toots! Need a rescue?"

He'd never saw a glowering look come across someone's face so fast before. "Shut-up and listen to me!" When her breath was retaken from the assault, she fired away at what was left of Vector's egoistical psyche, only this time, he could see she was more frantic than turned off. "I had a hand on a boy, but I lost him in a swell!"

"When?" Vector fired off, inhaling deeply to oxygenate his blood and air-sacks.

"Just before you lit us up."

Nodding, he looked up to see the cable and claw being lowered. "Can you handle–"

"Yes, I can handle that scrap metal you call technology! Now go under and get him!"

It was here, and just before he said good riddance to the surface and _her_, that he finally realized where the attitude was coming from, and why the same inflicted barbed feelings where being cut open but with a different knife. The glimmer from her replaced cybernetic dreads were the clear indication. _"Legion! It must run in the ideology."_

And he went under. In just close to thirty seconds and a earful later, he'd gone from air, to something resembling a surface, then straight down into a world that possibly had little less care of his existence than the pair of female Legionnaires struggling above the two plains. Then, he could be wrong. But while he contemplated whether to surface ever again, he had settled himself into a swaying pattern with his body, keeping his head straight–possibly the most labor intensive part of his groove–while commanding his abs and back muscles to wriggle at such a slow pace, which in turn powered his muscular tail to thrash at the water, creating his own personal ribbon behind him that propelled him deeper than his oxygen filled body would ever allow. If only he could see through the dark, however clear, water.

Turning to what he recollected was west, he eased up his descent, concentrating on where the lights were shining down to. He was still in the ray of the main searchlight possibly blinding the blue female echidna he had left up above, but either it was Julie-Su or Ray that was sweeping the secondary light, searching for more survivors. If there were any.

Another pass and he still didn't see any being around him, or anything. The broad stroke of the light circled towards the north, rounding away from him. He followed it with his eyes, slowing himself down even further, until...

Was he mistaken? His mind hadn't even flickered to journeying to the worlds of fables and fairy-tales, but yet, he thought he saw a girl floating in the undertow of the ocean. He didn't see it from the roving floodlight but he caught a glimpse of it just below him from the radiant glow of the direct light above. Vector kicked with his feet to help point his nose down, wriggling his tale to pursue what he thought was a mermaid. At present, illusions or not, he had to find someone. He didn't like the idea of resurfacing to that angry–

A darker shadow to the already dark water made contact to the rational side of his brain and ordered his tail to be kicked in high gear. Closing in, he saw the gilded hair wasn't actually hair but dreads. When he reached out his arms to snag the boy, Vector's lungs seemed to squeeze his soul when the look from the cloaked boy, his face lifeless but yet seeming he was calling out for help, his arms beckoning for someone to come and retrieve them, hanging in the watery void as if suspended from an unseen force, and his dreads, sprawled out beside his head, floating like his robe and fingers, weightless in a weighted world that enclosed and encased its victims. If it wasn't in the past, or if he didn't remember it then, he thought he realized for the first time what dire dread for another suffering party felt like. It propelled him faster. It made him scoop the boy into his arms with a force that was too fast for the motionless limbs. It almost made him stop completely as he fostered the feeling of carrying a helpless soul to its reviving. It made him wonder if he would ever experience the same feeling again, asking himself if this was and would be just a one shot deal.

And it made the trip to the surface a longer road back for him. He swore his lungs, though not heavy in sensation, were going to burst open anyway with anticipation, with a sincere longing for the surface.

Breaking the water, he didn't take in the long, rejuvenating breath that most land-dwellers would strive to take. He did, however, breathe out to finally see the young boy in his arms was that of a Legionnaire. Yet with a clearing blink to add proper moisture to his eyes, the notion of a former, though it still felt like it, enemy had been reclaimed but in the lifeless body he was holding in his arms.

Vector threw his head around as quick as he could, first looking where he was in relation to the four winds, then searching for the girl and the large body of the Captain. His locked onto the empty plank, it was bobbing just as violently as he was. A second sinking feeling–and one he would never reveal to Julie-Su or the rest of the Chaotix as long as being cool was his fashion–struck like a plasma bolt to his headsets. Had they gone under? Could she not use her hot air to keep her and that Stenson fella afloat?

It was when a shadow drifted over him had he pitched his head up, the young boy's face looking as if doing the same but on a different, and ominous level, according to the crocodile. The blue female echidna was all guts and sincerity than bluster after all. Kinda like Julie-Su.

"_Just great...now there's two of 'em."_

* * *

"Keep the pace steady, Mighty. One knock or jolt could send her falling. And I know she can't splash down like Vector can."

Coming from the Doctor, that was possibly the weirdest thing the armadillo had heard from him. And if Quack could honestly see what he was doing with the _child's play_ controls he was using, he was pretty sure the duck would've just said _never mind_ after one observation. But he kept to himself and kept the speed dial where it was on the square panel just over his head, and his hand squarely on the actuating handle.

"You guys still going to need me?" asked Charmy in his high voice behind them.

Quack stole a glimpse to the bee, noticing his posture had the effect that he hated wasting space. "It looks like one patient so far, Charmy," replied the white duck, his doctor's coat flapping in the stray winds, his face turning back down the edge of the ramp. "But I can't find Vector."

Julie-Su's voice broke through the male dominating space inside the cabin. "He needs to do a search, Doc. Our optics can't give a close inspection like Charmy can."

The bee smiled at his new appointment, reaching up to his goggles above his head and lowering them to his eyes. "I guess I'll be on my way then."

"Just wait till we get our incoming first," replied Quack. "Hey, bright side is, young Prince...it's not raining as hard."

For the moment it seemed the skyward bound cable was the hour glass to the main event for them. Quack kept his even face down while Mighty, Julie-Su and an anxious Charmy waited.

"How's Ray?" Charmy asked Julie-Su, wanting the tension relieved.

"Well," the pink echidna began with a knowing smirk, "we haven't crashed, have we?"

Charmy gave a mocking smear of a smile for a brief instant, only to mask it with a true seriouness when he glimpsed Quack lowering himself down to his knees and extending his right hand in a very caring way.

"Easy, ma'am. Just take my hand and I'll help you up. Are you injured?"

Julie watched as a slim, feminine blue hand reached into Quack's. "Not that I'm aware of," came a briskly, emotional voice. It wasn't until the head of where the voice had come from risen above the ramp's edge had Julie-Su finally began to have doubts about her decision. The blue echidna was old, and she was a Legionnaire.

And then the shock and surprise engulfed her pink body when the woman spoke:

"My husband is in and out of consciousness, and I don't know how many more are down there," decried the blue echidna with a narrowed face to Quack. "That brute you sent down went after Vickers. I'd lost him from a swell and he sank down."

"_Husband?"_ Julie gasped beside herself.

"I can see the both of them," Mighty shouted out, peering down the edge.

But for Julie-Su, at least there was one quality about their rescued party: they both shared a healthy good disdain just by her mere description of Vector's entrance.

Gathering her boots under her, Julie-Su set after the large hulk that was wrapped around the five fingered claw, only stopping briefly when she noticed the hardened face of the Captain of the _Hawking_.

"_Captain Stenson?" _

"What happened?" she finally asked when her senses reacquainted her.

Julie could see the response coming, and she was waiting for it. The blue echidna had it on the tip of her lips until the world around them froze when both females' eyes solidified in a mutual glowering stare against each other, Julie-Su's only coming after she identified the foreboding detestable scorn within the other echidna's eyes. Aside from her dark, drenched blouse, her wet, messy hair that was tangled around her just as equally soaked and dripping dreads, the echidna's appearance added more knots to Julie's stomach than she knew anyone could tie up.

"_Lar-Na_," Stenson's moan came from behind the blue echidna. Julie seemed to stare on in quiet amazement as the trailing of the older female's name dissolved the mask she had seemed to purposely place on her face just for Julie. And she didn't know why.

"Easy, Mighty," eased Doctor Quack, holding the rescue claw and it's captive with a wide spread of his arms when the pulley line was fully relieved of any obvious slack.. "Can the assembly be slid back inside."

"Working on it, doc," came the Armadillo's pensive reply, Julie-Su straying her gaze to see him place his right hand on a handle directly beside the one he was using. A hard shudder latter and the inside of the fuselage was filled with the cry of an electric motor.

"Little help here, Julie," said Quack, using what strength he had to keep Stenson's ride as gentle as possible.

Julie's legs pushed her forward, but Lar-Na was right there at the doc's side, holding with caring hands around Stenson's head and face. "Stenon?" she wanted to scream. Everyone close by could hear it in her voice. "Stenson, my husband, please don't–"

Julie-Su's face lite up on hearing Lar-Na's plead to her equal; to her _husband_.

"_Lar-Na_, don't talk," Stenson whispered in a tired, raspy tone.

"Julie," called Quack over his right shoulder, both his arms underneath Stenson's back. "Get on the other side of me and be ready to help me lift him. I have a spot just past the seats for him."

Nodding for affirmation, she seemed to scurry around the large red echidna's boots and placed both her arms and hands beneath his back, weaving them like one might interlace their fingers beside Doctor Quack's. When she was ready, she nodded again to Quack, who in turned, twisted his head over to Mighty:

"Okay, release him."

With Mighty slamming his finger on one of the many buttons on the ceiling mounted control panel, the heavy actuators of the claw moaned as their phalanges separated away from each other and Stenson's full weight was _gently_ given to Julie and Quack.

"You have his head, ma'am?" Quack asked Lar-Na as he had to squeeze between two of the claws fingers.

"Yes."

"Okay, let's move him back. Go ahead and rotate him so his head points towards the tail."

Squatting to get under the claw, Julie-Su was glad her morning stretches were becoming useful, having to twist her ankles and abs to negotiate the minor ballet to do as Quack had instructed–keeping her eyes forward while straying them some so she didn't trip, occasionally looking at Lar-Na as a guide and to see if her disdain would come back on her face.

"Mighty, go check on Vec," she shouted back just before she traversed the gap between the passenger seats.

"Already on it, Su."

A slither hissing from the blue female echidna. "I _thought _so."

Julie-Su had only a fleeting second to see Lar-Na's seething face return before concentration set back in and on her equal. The seats were a tight squeeze, but the passage did more harm to Quack and Julie than Stenson. A few feet more and Quack had motioned with his head to the right. "Put him by the wall," he said. Walking backward for Julie wasn't a hard task but it was far from easy with the Captain's heavy hulk. And with another nod from Quack to her and then to Lar-Na–her lips quivering and her visage bearing something resembling pain–they carefully lowered Stenson to the deck.

"Okay, let me get my instruments," said Quack, getting to his feet and turning away.

"You do that, I'll go check on Mighty," Julie-Su added, she too turning before Quack stopped her with a firm grip to her right arm.

"No, stay put for a second–"

Mighty's voice boomed through the _Mark Two_. "Hey, Vec has someone else in his arms. The claw is almost to him."

"Can you two get him?" Quack asked just as loud.

"You're asking me, remember."

Another nod, than a stern, but requesting face to Julie-Su. "Get a blanket for her and I'll be right back."

She nodded as quick as she could and stood to bolt towards one of the seats where there awaited grey cotton blankets. Snagging one with her cybernetic hand, she looked up to the cockpit. "Ray, how you're doing?"

Her strengthened voiced was answered with Ray's arm extending a giant thumbs up. "It's pitching every-which-way, Julie, but I ain't making it come loose."

"Cool." And she turned with the blanket in her hand, moving as quickly as she could back towards Stenson and Lar-Na. She nearly slid into them when she dropped to her knees.

"Here," she calmly offered, opening the blanket.

To her great and hurtful surprise, Lar-Na didn't wait for the opening of blanket, but instead she snatched it ruthlessly from Julie-Su's hands. "Just give it ta' me," she barked, then discarding it behind her. Her stare hardened, her eyes motioning behind the pink echidna. "So you have recruited kids to fly. I thought that was below you."

For reasons she didn't care of why Lar-Na was acting like this, Julie matched her tone and expression at her. "Hey, I can just throw you right back out and take my rescue somewhere else."

"What's going on here?" Quack bellowed as he nearly ran forward with a pair of hooked scissors in his hands. "Have you checked him yet?"

A shake that flung dreads around and her temper aside. "For what?" Julie-Su asked in a easier voice.

But Doctor Quack didn't answer her, shooting his stare to Lar-Na. "Please get that blanket wrapped around you."

"I'm fine!"

"No you're not, ma'am," Quack shot straight back with a larger caliber voice. "You're in shock and you don't know it. I don't care how many enhancements you have, shock is shock and your fundamental anatomy is suffering from it."

Lar-Na's stare harden, almost encrusting. "And what do you want me to do."

"What I tell you...warm up and calm down, or you will be my next worst case."

Letting his words hammer at her without a reply, Quack took the hooked-shaped scissors and placed them at Stenson's collar, sheering open his cotton jumpsuit and exposing his furred–and to Quack's medical shock–twin metal chest plates. His eyes were wide with his voice. "What in Gray's anatomy is this?" Reaching behind him, he placed his hand on a large white linen towel and carefully pressed it at the chest of his large patient, dabbing at it until he rolled the sheet off. It was purple, his head darting closer to Stenson's chest with a closer eye.

"Did you see what happened to him," his voice distantly asked Lar-Na while his attention was roving at Stenson's chest, looking for where the bleeding was pooling from. For the moment he asked her, he thought he saw the captain's blood oozing from between the lower metal plate and his soaked fur.

Lar-Na's laboring, although strong voice reached out and brought his head up. "He grabbed me and drug me back behind him before the blast."

"What blast?" Julie-Su nearly snapped in an awe of disbelief.

Lar-Na shook her head from the pounding of questions from all around her; including her own. "We were hit by a torpedo–I think–"

Heavy footsteps ranged inside the large cabin. "Coming through Doc. This guys bleeding pretty bad, and he's unresponsive."

"Vickers!" Lar-Na shouted in disbelief, but sorrow.

It was Mighty, his arms carrying a dangling, lifeless boy, not much younger than him, between the seats and towards Quack. "Over there," the doc said, pointing to the back and left of where he was.

Then he turned and grabbed Julie-Su's arm, picking her up and like one of St. John's _helpers_ to the King, escorted her to the forward most seats, out of earshot of Lar-Na. "Can you keep whatever war's at bay between you two?" he asked right in the pink echidna's ear, looking off at Ray as he did.

She kept her stare on Mighty as he lowered the young Legionnaire to the floor. "It depends on her," she said, forcing her face over to Quack with her eyes trying to read his. "Look, I can go back and help Ray."

"No, I need you the most–right now."

"Why?" came her sharp tone, bringing her eyes away from him and back to Lar-Na.

She felt Quack inch his bill closer to her left ear, almost touching her cybernetic dread-lock, his breathing becoming labored, unknowing to her turned away face of the intensity his own was forming while his thoughts were organizing. His tone had the perfect match; slow, direct. "Because when a few fighters came to Knothole after driven from their home, I did a physical examination on a girl in the bunch, and nearly had to ask Rotor to come and run a _diagnostics_ on her."

That girl was her. She remembers seeing his face when she was very leery of him taking her X-Ray. The procedure was fine but to see her inner-hardwire and hardware baffled him. She didn't have to see the X-Ray to know how her devotion to technocracy in her very youth had made her, had consumed her body, inside and out, and had made her feel; for she felt it. Every lead to every mechanical or computer component hardwired to her basic and functioning anatomy; from the chip where he brain meets her spine, to her replaced dead-lock that functioned as her antenna and first article of her body to be sacrificed to the _cause_; and to her cybernetic arm, that thanks to the chip, she doesn't remember ever receiving. She was Knothole's only science project that she wished they could undertake with one goal: to get rid of it all, and retake her body that so many other Echidna's she'd had seen–and endured their distasteful looks about her–and to become them.

Then there was Knuckles; the magic in her life that never looked at her the way she did to herself, but only at her full heart.

Yet in all this, her face bore a thought to Quack that she noticed it kept him staring at her. "What about Bunnie?" she asked him in a steeping voice.

Quack's eyes, then head, faltered to the side, turning towards Mighty and Vector, who were hunched over the young boy. His tone was soft, but inflicting to Julie-Su, even if he didn't aim it to be:

"She didn't volunteer."

And he stepped away from her, abandoning her next hope of acceptance.

"Hey Doc," crashed in Vector's voice, bring the pink, sullen echidna out of her resurfacing turbulent thoughts that she knew she had locked away long ago. "You need to see this dude's face!"

He seemed he didn't have to when Quack detached from whatever person Julie last saw him as, to become the doctor they were needing. "Miss Su, get him on his side and rub smartly at his back. Make sure his mouth is open."

A sharper female voice assaulted him from Stenson's side. "But he's breathing!"

Julie met with Lar-Na's acidic eyes as she dropped to her knees. _"C'mon, I'm trying to help."_

"It's to get anymore water out of his mouth so it doesn't obstruct his airway." Quack, himself, was now lowering down to the unconscious boy's left side, placing his hand on the kid's right shoulder while examining his face. There was no single gash, but, from what Quack could see was a large removal of Vickers' fur and skin from his temple down close to his cheek, spreading over to the back of his head. With his eyes burning from this he went on with his explanation to Lar-Na, "A teaspoon of water down his lungs could kill–" He stopped himself in order not to scream when he pushed the boy's muzzle over to trace more of the large wound. Three of the echidna's dreads were ripped away from his head like a blade had made a downward sweeping diagonal cut, leaving a fourth dread-lock towards the nape of his neck partially filleted. Blood was pooling around him and the unconscious Legionnaire.

"Did he have any dread-lock replacements?" he asked after achieving his breathing again.

"One on his left side," filtered Lar-Na's voice, Quack looking back to see both female echidna's were placing Stenson over, the blue female pressing against his back.

The heavy moan from the large male was satisfying to Quack's eyes.

"Okay, gang, now our turn," he said, eyeing at Mighty directly across from him, then to Vector, holding the boy's head still with one hand. "Mighty, we're rolling him towards you."

Placing his hands underneath Vicker's body, Quack lifted up and Mighty eased in the direction. Water trickled out of the Legionnaire's mouth and some out of his nostrils. When Quack pressed and rubbed at Vicker's back, Mighty watched as more came with it...followed by the trickling of blood from his lips.

"Hey, he's bleeding from his mouth."

Quickly hunching over and looking down, Quack's face shook in dismissive. "Nah, I think it's the blood pooling around us. Don't think it's pulmonary edema" A quick check over his back and shoulder to Lar-Na and Julie-Su before looking back at Mighty. "Okay, bring him back over."

Not an inch had they moved him when Vickers coughed, spitting up more saltwater onto the stained deck.

* * *

Julie-Su had brought Stenson back over, lying him on his back. When she looked to Lar-Na, sitting with Stenson's head in her lap, she had to follow the older echidna's stare and find out when she had a fleeting smile.

"Vector, go grab guaze...lot's of it," she heard Quack order.

"We need some, too," she put in. "And a blanket."

The croc rose. "Yeah, yeah. Coming, coming."

"Make it fast!" Lar-Na cried out.

To stop herself from laughing wasn't even a struggle, but Julie-Su did shake her head before looking back down. Why was she trying to avoid eye contact with Lar-Na? "What's next, Doc?"

"Check his pulse," came his reply, seeming farther than it should be. When she diverted her head over her shoulder, she saw the reply was mostly directed merely at him. Two fingers were at Vickers' throat.

"It's up, but strong," said Lar-Na, her voice easing from her frantic state.

A shake from Quack's bill pierced at Julie's heart. "Wish I could say the same from our kid here. His is very weak." His face drifted to her's just as Vector dropped an armful of white packets at Vickers' head. "Julie, his severed cybernetics–did they connect to any of his vital functions."

She stammered in her head. "Ahh, nero, yes."

Lar-Na's voice peaked over her thoughts. "Defibrillation, but it's a reverse method."

A stray of his head brought Lar-Na the most inquisitive, yet dire stare she had ever seen. "Better explain that to me," Quack stammered.

Julie-Su's voice finally engaged, accepting the blanket and gauze packets from Vector. "Our heartbeats and central nervous systems help power our technology."

Quack's face solidified a fear that not Julie-Su or Lar-Na could explain. He was still hunched, still clinging to Vickers' body. "Okay, for right now put direct pressure on any wound you find. We stop the bleeding pronto! Our kid here is on the verge of dropping into decompenstated shock if he hasn't already. So..." Quack's moment pause kept Julie's eyes on him. "So we keep him supine." This time his face found Lar-Na's. "Ma'am, what's his name?"

A heavy voice answered from below her. "_Vickers_."

"Stenson, don't talk," Lar-Na said, closing the space between her head and Stenson's.

"No," Quack gentle said, "keep him talking–keep him alert."

* * *

Ray's attention was deviating constantly between the controls, over his left shoulder, taking in the violet pooling all around the boy they brought in, then back to the controls, letting his job detract what he just saw.

Yet again, his attention was diverted with Quack's voice. "Vickers?"

As his eyes fell on the hunched over duck, Ray wondered why the doctor was creating more pain for the boy, watching him rub a knuckle at the kid's chest very harshly. When Quack produced a pair of hook scissors from his wet and purple blood stained lab-coat, the yellow flying squirrel turned away, not wanting to see what was going to happen next. _"Hey, the rain is starting to let up more,"_ he voiced to himself when his eyes fell upon the cockpit window, watching small drops of water sprinkle on the cabin. _"Hope Charmy is okay."_ A fast ripping sound from the cabin darted his head back over his shoulder in the heavy seat, witnessing Quack cut through the heavy black robe of the boy, and to his astonishment, baring a knuckle again right on young, prone echidna's chest.

"Vickers! Hey young man, can you hear me? Can _you_ feel a pain on your chest?"

Ray felt the ship jerk. He broke his stare and focused on the controls, easing the yoke down, slamming his hand on the throttle to add a little more power.

"Stenson, say something," echoed into the cockpit the older girl echidna's voice. But this time he kept his eyes forward. Even when a lite groan was carried into his domain, he still kept his attention more focused.

"Mighty, a little more pressure at his dreads," Quack generously ordered.

"I've only got two hands, and it's overflowing."

Doc's voice came back a little more demanding. "Vec, need more gauze, and find me the respirator. Looks like a sturdy green balloon, but I need a mask for a broad species muzzle."

"_Keep looking forward, man,"_ Ray said to himself. _"You'll just be in the way. You don't want to see this."_

A harsh shrill rammed from behind him. "Stenson!?"

Twisting back over, Ray was finally shaken when his eyes fell on the blue echidna, watching her press her hands at the larger red echidna's face, crying down at him with a sad face. It was all his mind could describe.

"Stenson...wake up! Please, wake up! You're not waiting for me!"

"Doc!?" shouted Julie-Su. She looked as if she was crushing his chest with some white tissue paper. She looked frantic in Ray's eyes, her own face looking back to Quack.

"_What did she mean she wasn't waiting for him?" _he asked, never minding what another voice in him was trying to reason. He'd seen death. He'd seen oppression. But he always wanted to forget about it. So he turned his face away. He kept to himself once more...doing his job. But still wondering why Quack was shining a flashlight in Vickers' eyes. _"Is he trying to call for him? Is he trying to show the way for him to come back?"_ His wandering smile left him. _"Is that all I need to do to bring people back, too? I can help with that."_

"His eyes aren't responding to dilatation," the doc's voice came pounding in severe dissatisfaction. "Here, Julie, check and see if our Captain's pupils constrict."

Ray forced his head to turn back, his mind curious if Julie-Su could try the same thing–

_THUMP–THUMP!!_

Eyes locked to the left cockpit portion of the window; descrying Charmy supporting himself with one hand while hammer fisting another two knocks on the windscreen with the other, holding an opened, panic filled mouth straight at Ray.

* * *

"Hey, it's Charmy, Julie-Su."

She had to brush her hair back behind her when she looked up into the cockpit. Her cybernetic hand was placed firmly on the small pen light Quack had slid to her. "What?" she asked a bit dazed.

"Stenson?" Lar-Na shook at her equal's face, making Julie turn hers.

Ray's high pitched, excited voice pushed back into her attention. "It's Charmy, Julie-Su. I think he wants me to follow him."

"Can you do it?" she asked, edging over to Stenson's face, thumbing the clip that activated the LED light. Lar-Na rolled back his eyelids for her as she flickered the light back and forth, catching the Captain's pupil slowly constrict but dilated flush with his brown hue a little too slowly.

"I think I can."

"I need to know, Ray," Julie retorted back, but never looking up.

Quack's voice jolted her though in wake of her's. "Start squeezing some air into him, Vector."

"Hey Quack," she began, forgetting about Ray's reply, "He's eyes aren't reactive like they should be."

Before Quack could answer, Ray's ebbing tone shot through. "I'm gonna try."

Julie's head darted to the cockpit, glimpsing at Ray pushing the yoke forward and the throttle lever up for more power. But what she was expecting was for the engine to whine up, to announce a continuos roar of explosions...not a _sigh_...

...A _sigh_ from below her.

"Stenson!?"

Lar-Na's voice had inhaled her equal's name, shaking Julie-Su's core that mimicked her own cry when she had seen Knuckles' lifeless body over a year ago. It rattled her so much her eyes slammed down. Stenson's head had turned...his chest fallen, not rising. "Doc! He stopped breathing!"

Quack's tone was as knee-jerk in his response: "Check his pulse!"

She found the artery just below the echidna's jaw where she needed to feel for–nothing. Not even a weak attempt to push her index and middle finger off his red, damp fur. Darting her eyes up, she searched for Lar-Na's but found she needed to search for her soul as well. The blue echidna was stricken with fright in a distant stare as if watching her world crumble in Stenson's lifeless body. Then the plain rocked; Julie-Su realizing it was the ship and not her emotions and soul quaking inside her. Looking forward to the cockpit she saw Ray fighting the controls, and not leaving one hand on the throttle. Glimpsing back down, all she could see was a soul leaving...then looking forward she could see a woman waiting for her equal's touch to leave her, waiting for his departing soul to end hers. Did Julie-Su want this to happen to Knuckles at this instant? If Lar-Na's total resigned look was the foreboding pain of what was yet to come, would her life ending now, over the ocean on this black night and a half a world away from _her_ equal jeopardize his own life because her touch left him, breaking Knuckles down with the weight that in this very time, could make him venerable, defenseless, and in the fate of it, get him killed. Julie-Su knew what this coming pain was...she had felt it before when Knuckles was taken from her.

She didn't want to see it.

Getting to her feet, she fixated her eyes dead to the cockpit, fully determined to save the ship and everyone onboard. She started forward–stopped dead when a harsh pull and clutch of fingers came from her wrist.

"You're not deserting again, Julie-_Su_!"

Lar-Na's venomous voice, and when Julie-Su swung her head to see the older echidna's virulent eyes chasing at hers, made her freeze to almost becoming a fixed object in the _Mark Two_. "I'm not letting you betray me or anyone of the Legion _again_! And I will not let Stenson die because of you siding with the Guardian!" Lar-Na pulled Julie-Su forward, placing her muzzle to hers. "He's in you thoughts now, I know it. And I'll be damned if you directly betray and desert_ me_ and my _husband_..."

She saw her throat collapse when the breath Lar-Na was trying to force down escaped her. Her tight grip strengthened on a reflex Julie-Su could see wasn't driven by anger. Then a cough pushed out the woman's lips, followed by a sudden gasp for air that she had to bring up her free hand to her chest, as if to pull at her fur and skin to aid in respiration...and she coughed again, more violent, more repetitive, to the point her she had weakened her grip away from Julie-Su to place it over her mouth.

"What's wrong?"

A savior gulp of air, a waned voice. "Nothing you can..._eh_–fix."

And at the moment, Lar-Na inhaled again, deeper, steadier, lowering her head down to Stenson's lips. It was if she was giving him a long kiss...until Julie-Su saw his heavy chest rise. When Lar-Na lifted just an inch up from her lover's dormant face, she inhaled again and pressed her lips to his, forcing the air into his lungs, pouring what Julie could only feel as her passion into him.

"Someone better help Charmy?" shouted Ray.

Julie dropped back to her knees, interlacing her three finger gloves together and planting them on the gauze she was using to clot the large gash that traced Stenson's fur and skin and between his twin metal chest plates. Breathing in, she leaned into her arms, compressing his rib-cage. "What's happening, Ray?" she asked without skipping a beat.

"He's trying to lift someone up to us...Mighty–he needs you."

* * *

He was almost there. If the echidna wasn't so heavy he could've swooped in already. But the body Charmy had dangling in his arms weighed a ton without being soak-and-wet. Looking down and finally bathing in the two large flood lights of the _Mark Two_, he could see why.

"You Legion guys need to loosen up...big time!"

His wings were tiring, pumping on his back as fast as the cartilage and muscles would allow. A foot later he could smile with almost being in arm's reach of the ramp. An inch later he could touch it if he had the freedom to do so. A second later and his shoulder had a warm hand around it, never able to rejoice in having his feet touch the deck when Mighty had lifted him a full Mobian body height up.

"What'd you catch–"

Mighty didn't have time to blurt out Charmy's name when his brain etched the large red echidna's long dread-locks–natural and replaced–dangle on the deck, trailing rivers of his life's elixir down them. And then he looked over the rest of him, birthing an unbridled emotion of dispair for the soul Charmy had saved.

Then the thing whispered.

"_Trent–Trent_..._how_ could you..."

"Help me bring him in. Maybe the doc can help him," Mighty observed, grabbing the Legionnaire's heavy black boots and lifting them off the floor.

"Turn him around so I don't trip on his dreads."

"Okay, Charmy."

* * *

They turned him slowly but rushed forward to the cabin in a matter that looked like movers on a mission, maneuvering between the seats and passing by Julie-Su and Lar-Na. Ell-Tee glimpsed this from the corner of his left eye, though it was throbbing and blurred from the water and stinging more from his blood flowing down from the center of his head, tracing down his stiff, but crooked jaw-line, his Field Marshal, his chest being worked on...and Lar-Na giving her all. He felt his body drifting. He felt his arms sagging under him; felt his dreads rub across the metal deck. But he could still turn his head. He could still speak.

"_Laaaar-Naaaa_."

But she didn't look up. She didn't hear him.

"_Larrr_-Naaa_aa_."

He felt himself lowered, watching the lights and the pale inside walls rise up around him. Then his back touched the floor–

"_AAHHHHHhh!!_"

He arched his back, squirming, wriggling, fighting to get away from the pain. He searched the space around him for something to hold on to, to cling to to transfer the pain away; but it numbed when his head swayed to the left, over to Lar-Na. Peace swallowed his mind, calling on his face to give a lasting smile at her when her's met his.

"ELL-TEE!!"

She started to dart up. She started to relinquish her hold on her equal...on his dearest and trusted comrade; his mortal friend. For Ell-Tee it drove his head to shake like a small ripple being born from a single drop of rain, inhaling a breath for his vocal cords to enjoy a pass over of free air of this world.

"_Ssttaaayyy wiitthh himmm, misstresss_."

She didn't move, only her chest and her searching eyes. But he could see her wanting to.

This time, he could only force his mouth to move for her:

_STAY...WITH...HIM._

"Mighty, get over here and help Vector with Vickers," decried a sharp voice over from his right side.

Feet and shoes pushed and slammed all around him. Then knees beside his head. He could still feel his hands, though lifeless, stretched but mangled, seeking for anything more to hold them, wanting someone to help him slip by. When Lar-Na fell back down to her knees, when her eyes left his hold for his last moment with her, he drifted his head, such as his mind, over, tracing a handsome young bee's face directly above him, and across to a duck with an eye-patch over one eye, trying to talk to him, feeling at his neck, then his chest.

Ell-Tee stopped when he saw Corporal Vickers, lying on his back, a green crocodile pushing air into his lungs with a crude, primitive respirator. When the croc lifted the mask off his face, Vickers' mouth was motionless, opened. The red and black armadillo was checking at his throat...his pulse.

"_Vickers_?" he breathed into the air, willing his arm to extend out to the boy's.

His arm had stopped after only a few muscle spasms of movement. He felt the throbbing in his eyes slowing, becoming comfort over everything, glazing to blurriness...to stillness upon a lasting breath...

* * *

"..._Vic_..."

Quack turned his head down to his new patient. "What did you say, sir?" But the echidna didn't respond. He didn't even flinch when Quack buried his knuckle in the half echidna, half cyborg's sternum. "Hey, partner!? Can you hear me–"

He silenced himself when the sound of air escape, almost bubbling from somewhere from the echidna's body.

"Hey, Doc," called out Mighty from behind in a very grievous tone.

"Hush, Mighty," Quack answered back, his face scribbled with questions and puzzlement.

Taking his lone right hand, he pressed down on Ell-Tee's chest, lifting it up while bringing his head closer. He heard the gurgling hiss again.

"Hey, doc, I've lost his pulse."

He didn't hear Mighty this time. Doctor Quack of Knothole City was out of the office and now at this very moment putting his hand inside the Legionnaire's robe, extending it out into the light with a dab of blood on his finely feathered hand. Rubbing it on his yellow skinned legs, he placed the same hand back inside the echidna's heavy robe but followed the clavicle bone around the shoulder to his back. He didn't have to pull his hand out to know what the escaping air was from. The lake of purple blood around his and Charmy's knees should have been the indication, and even feeling the soaked metal floor from the large gash inside the robe. But he needed his hands for his second opinion, and the final call.

"He's got a sucking chest wound in his back," he sighed in low, disheartened tone, looking over at Charmy, whom he know hadn't a clue what he was talking about.

"Can you fix it?" Charmy asked like a kid asking his father to mend a shattered vase.

He barely shook his when Mighty called out to him. "Doc?" Turning his head he could see Vector trying to pump in oxygen with Mighty not wanting to kneel by him idly. "Want me to crank out the shock paddles?"

Before he could say it, the only two female voices, even though at odds, seemed to have finally found something to agree with and said it in unison.

"NO!"

Quack darted his head over to Julie-Su's and Lar-Na's direction as he stood.

"You'll short circuit him, Mighty!" Julie-Su barked at the sinking armadillo.

"And his wet fur could do a reverse defeb," Quack followed up. He paused a moment longer as he locked eye with the two girls; Lar-Na, he noticed, fighting for breath. "How's he doing?"

Lar-Na's head went back to Stenson's mouth. Julie-Su could only shake her head before going back to compressions.

"Fifteen and two breaths," Quack said with a distant, but reminding voice, turning back around to Mighty and Vector. "Okay, time for the ole' cardiac-pulmonary-recitation gig."

* * *

"One–two–three–four–"

She tried not to tear as Julie-Su counted, pushing on her lover's chest while she mustered all the strength she felt dwindling away to force air into Stenson's lungs. _"Stenson,"_ she whispered into the heavy air, closing her eyes.

"–thirteen–fourteen–fifteen–breathe!"

Pinching Stenson's nose, she engulfed his lips with her's and forced every nano-gram of air down his throat, watching his chest rise before falling. She inhaled again, fighting this time to expel her payload. Yet, when she lifted up, she nearly collapsed upon him, wasted with energy, struggling not to cough again.

But Julie-Su was picking up where she wanted to be, her muscular toned arms rippling around her pink fur and the hidden skin underneath. "One–two–three–four–"

"Stenson?" Lar-Na cried.

"Six–seven–eight–nine–"

"Stenson, you wake up. You fight this. I'm not going to have you wait for me on the other side–" She forced down a coming spasm in her lungs.

"Twelve–thirteen–"

"I'm not letting you fall in defeat now. I'm not burying you."

Julie-Su kept her count up but couldn't pull her eyes away from Lar-Na. "Fifteen!"

And she watched the blue echidna place her lips on her _husband_ and forced air down to his lungs.

"Breathe, Stenson!" Lar-Na flatly screamed her order when she came up for air.

"Check his pulse!" shouted Quack from behind them.

Julie dove her fingers right for Stenson's artery at his throat. Again, nothing. "Starting compressions again."

"How long has it been since he stopped breathing?" shouted Quack again.

"I don't know," she almost snapped back. Placing her digit fingered glove at the base of Stenson's sternum, Julie interlaced her fingers once more and pushed at his chest. "One–two–three–"

And she pressured on, fighting all the questions in her head why this Lar-Na was calling the Captain of the _Hawking_ her husband. They were Legion! _Their_ customs had no place for marriage in the Legion.

"Charmy, close the ramp," Ray voiced from his high position.

But Julie didn't hear the bee's footsteps nor even cared why Ray had asked for the ramp to be closed. Her gloves were turning purple with Stenson's blood escaping out of his wound and her endurance was starting to go. "Fifteen–breathe!"

Lar-Na closed her lips to Stenson's, breathing down into him...but kept her lips locked to his. When Julie sought to question this, her eyes turned up to a moving but limp presence beside her.

"_My–wife_..."

Stenson's voice came in just when the ramp had shut to the outside, allowing him to be heard by only the surrounding party. Then his chest rose but to only fall under a heavy moan of pain.

"Lar-_Na_..."

"Stenson, don't speak," his wife whispered into his ear. "Just stay with me...keep squeezing me."

"Lar..._Na_."

Julie-Su crossed over him, searching for his eyes, and glad to find them open. With this, she placed her fingers seeking his pulse, finding it strong but not regular in rhythm. But his chest rose again, this time trembling with a heavier moan out his nose.

And when she saw him take in his third full breath, and with Lar-Na's face shining down on his before looking up, his voice came to them in a heavy tone of sorrow; Julie searching his eyes for the mournful stare he was beaming across the room to the raised voices across the room.

"_Vickers_?"

* * *

"No pulse," Quack nearly barked at the boy's body after removing his fingers from Vickers' throat. "Two shots, Vec." –His glance to Vector awarded him the two puffs of air from the respirator– "Count 'em out for me, Mighty!"

Interlaced fingers; knowing full well where to place his hands, Quack practically rammed his palms into the kid's open chest. And he was just that; a kid! Replaced anatomy to machinery didn't count for him in growing up. Just seeing his young face under the mask, recollecting Knuckles' height and stature, comparing the Guardian to his brother he had to work on just a week prior, and remembering the kids that looked just as young as Vickers on the same ship they had saved that same _week_ broke every barrier in Doctor Quack not to give up on him. _"I'm not losing two, today! I'm not taking no from you!"_ he shouted straight at Vickers' chest with his charging eyes.

"Fifteen, Doc!" Mighty said directly beside him, watching him readying his hands on the mask to seal it around Vicker's mouth when Vector puffed air into it.

"One–two!"

Back at it with a vengeance; his arms pumping a little harder this time. Why did it feel the boy's chest was stiffening? "C'mon. You're young!" he shouted down at his patient.

"Yo, doc!"

Quack shook his head away from Vector's page. "Mighty, I need you to count."

"I am," the armadillo reasoned a little harsh, almost pushing his face to Quack's.

"I need it out loud, now come on!"

A second of hesitation and Mighty's voice pierced the cabin. A moment later the count had stopped.

"Breathe!" Quack instructed, taking a few himself.

Two shots; hands over chest and compressing.

Mighty's lone voice bounced around the cabin walls. "One–two–three–"

"I'm not losing two, today!" Quack shouted aloud at Vickers. "C'mon boy, help me! I'm not losing you!"

He felt the nitrogen gasses escaping from his spine he was pressing so hard. He felt Vicker's chest wall loosen up, driving him further to compress, manually pumping his heart to give circulation through out his body–

"Doc."

The look on the boy's lifeless face under the small mask burned into him. Vicker's still eyes stared at him, calling him...driving him.

"Stay with me, Vickers!"

"Doc!"

He kept pushing, turning his head around to face the other three staring eyes at him; Lar-Na was still sitting on her shines, Julie-Su hovering around Stenson's left side, and the Captain watching on aimlessly at him.

"DOC!"

A heavy hand wrapped around Quack's arm...halting him.

He faced where it came from and saw Mighty's forgiving, but indurate eyes looking for the duck they seemed to have lost. "Doc! Stop, man...look." Quack felt himself shake when he inhaled his first breath back into the world he felt himself returning to, casting a long face and head over Vicker's mouth. His mouth had a purplish foam at the edge of his lips. And it liquified when Vector removed the mask as it streamed out of him like a releasing levy.

The armadillo's voice came as a forceful mumble, if he'd ever heard one. "He's dead, doc..." Mighty kept an estrange stare at Quack, mustering his will to speak again in the same punishing, soft, sighing tone. "...you broke his ribs, man."

It was at that moment, and in aid to Mighty's distancing voice in his ear that Quack realized that it wasn't the nitrogen bubbles being released from his back...and why Vickers' chest had become lighter in resistence. He got so involved, so inflamed with saving a life that he lost a moment of his, and did more harm to a situation that had no hope of turning around. He hadn't accepted it...and he had hurt a patient's soulless body in the process.

He found his strength, ordered it to his legs and climbed the long gauntlet up. Yet, his heart was heavy enough to almost yank him back down.

"Cover them," he said, holding a breath with a hardening face at the two bodies now before them. "Cover them," he repeated in a voice stricken in shame.

Turning around, he laid his eyes on the three Legionnaires–one reformed through love–and eased his way to them, finding a place beside Lar-Na and Stenson and sat down. He burred his head amongst his hands, rubbing the fatigue not away from him, but deeper inside.

"How is he?" he asked after a moment.

But not a word was spoken...not a word perfumed the air for the longest pause in time Julie-Su had ever felt pass in her existence. She wanted to break it, but couldn't. Instead, she scooted slowly back to the crescent wall, placing her back against it and tucking her legs against her chest while wrapping her arms around them to place her chin between her knees. She held this pose as Vector placed a blanket over Ell-Tee. She dropped her stare when Mighty covered Vickers.

She still wanted to hold her voice, but she couldn't. "How many were onboard?"

A longer pause before Lar-Na spoke. "Twenty...I think less."

Julie-Su brought her head over to the blue echidna, seeing that she was stroking one of Stenson's natural locks. "Twenty?"

Lar-Na sighed, her eyes firmly on Ell-Tee's and Vickers' covered bodies. "We made it to Albion...your equal was right, Su. But that pacifist culture could just sink to the bottom for all I care."

"But they made it?"

Stenson's voice called to their eyes.

"Where's–where's Wesson, Lar-Na. Did we find him?"

She rubbed his brow, lowering her face to his. "My love...we left him there...remember. He's safe."

But his stare was vacant, detached from them. "I'm–I'm sorry, Lar-Na..."

His sigh brought his wife's head closer to his. "Don't be, Stenson. You did what you set out to do. You helped–"

"I'm sorry I didn't listen...I'm...I'm not fit for Field Marshal if I couldn't listen–to...you." A pause Julie-Su wasn't sure she would forget. "I set them adrift," he continued in his distant voice. "I set us all adrift and there is no shore for us to go back to."

Lar-Na held him, placing her cheek on his brow, staring hard at Vickers' and Ell-Tee's boots. "There was never a shore. There never was."

A tiny voice broke Julie-Su's strain from the cockpit. "Julie, we need to go."

She could barely turn her head. "Yeah, power us up...back to Knothole, Ray."

A breath from her nostril; a sigh from her lips, Julie-Su drifted her eyes across to the same object Lar-Na, and now Stenson, were beaming towards.

They kept their stares at two sets of boots. That was all they could see...Vicker's and Ell-Tee's boots in the cabin light, swaying with the directional turn from Ray's controls, giving them the only movement to their bodies. Their boots were the last thing before the cabin light was switched...and for Julie-Su, feeling the dread of the gray-line fleetingly pass before darkness enshrouded her and everything. Even still, in the pale red light coming through the cockpit, their boots could still be seen.

And when the lone engine whined into its scream, she swore it was their voices crying from the other side of the river...that they were safe...that they found peace...

* * *

The sun was dawning, yet darkness still crested in the white room. The beeps from the machines were still abound though slim in tone and quality, and the flicker of the city lights gave the visual melody to the machines' calls, but to the world, grey was coming...and with it the blue that brought dawn...

And it was offset to a different feel, a different kind of air as a harsh, course, however faint whisper spread in the darkness.

"_Nata-Le?...Nata-Le?_"

And another brought his redemption to the coming morning...his coming life.

"I'm here, my equal...I'm here, Wesson."

* * *

Okay, how was it...I know the length was...well, long, but I did my best to have scene splits to break this up.

My confession right off the bat: originally, Wesson was suppose to die in this chapter as well. But since writing "Albion" I had a major change of heart in keeping him and his persona in the story. So, he stayed in Albion.

My angles I used for this were interesting on my behalf just to try a few new things, and give out some perspectives while telling the story. (Good reason why for the length) First...I haven't seen a fan-fic almost anywhere were Ray the Flying Squirrel has an actual role...and then throw something with his perspective in with it. I did have a hard time pressiving him as a child while in fact he is not. But he is still young, so his scene with watching Quack and Julie-Su trying to save lives did come from that child perspective and niavitiy. In some apsects with the ongoing war, it's sad.

But then I come to Ell-Tee. Had many ideas I wanted to use in his death, more so of building up to it, but I didn't want to write a book on him. I did have fun creating him, and wished I could keep him, but the story needs to go on without him. For those fans of his...I am terribly sorry. I really am...I liked him just as much. To be real honest, he was really suppose to be a fill in character. And that too was Vickers. Him, to me he was the fill in character, and there to be the punch line.

But in the end, they were all beings...life.

So to it is Wesson. We will see more of him...and since the many chapter's that have passed since his "Last Stand" I had to throw the very last scene in...and I look at it as the epilogue to Stenson, Lar-Na, and Wesson's sub-plot story line. I promise that this three ongoing character's will be truly seen again.

As for now, I'm on the verge on finishing the draft to the next chapter. And afterwards...the conclusion...one I'm still on the edge of my seat to write and see through...and I hope that's an omen that it will be done good and fast.


	38. Hurt

Hello all and welcome.

Not the regular editing format I'm used to doing here, but I'm trying to keep you all hanging TOO MUCH!

Not really much here to say but enjoy and please review but I had a major hassle with the title of the chapter. In the end, I wanted to go back to the quote that helped brought me this story. Well, the origin of it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends.

**

* * *

Hurt**

By Mauser

* * *

"_I hope she's okay."_

Knuckles' thought felt more transposed to the image he saw himself become: back resting on the narrow entrance from the large cargo room to the spacious cockpit cabin just a foot from him, arms folded tight against his chest, chin residing on his white crest of guardianship, lastly, his purple eyes lost in a solidarity his body and mind matched...pain of foreboding premonitions. But for him, he was experience all of this with deep sympathy squeezing out of his heart. The dread if worst fears are realized. The scarcity of hope that was becoming even harder to find. The lost feeling of not knowing if one could cope with restarting life. The darkening light of self-perseverance in the wake of a complete let-go. This had all transposed to him; in the flesh and in his driving heart. Yet, as he sighed beneath his breath, he knew his eyes were conveying sympathy, only regretting that he was glad he didn't have to suffer from it this round. He could look at all that he had felt before with an uneasiness that actually came with ease, for he was in the freedom that the individual creature surrounded by the still, pooled souls didn't know he was watching him. With every breath that seemed to be exhaled with a unnoticeable sob to the inexperienced eye, every fall of the chest that hunched the back over the body in inner distress, Knuckles knew exactly what Christian was going through. He knew exactly what the feeling of not knowing someone he truly cared about was dead, or struggling to stay alive.

He could read that very thought from Christian's straining, however, emotionless face.

"_I hope she's okay."_

His vocal chords had a soft stream excite them, jolting his senses to the forefront.

"Hey, Christian." Knuckles' voice didn't lift a head. "Hey, EST officer Christian!" he nearly shouted over the constant whine of the engines. But it did the trick, though. The brown echidna's head rose slowly, lifting away from his chest and from what Knuckles could see, his gloom. And like giving a reward for this, he lowered his voice with his head. "Need you for a 'sec."

Christian lumbered to his feet and wadded through the huddled mass before him, stepping lightly Knuckles observed, perhaps meticulously so not to trample on anymore feelings he had left. It was at this brief moment in transition that Knuckles reworked the gears in his head, subduing all the past conflicts and tribulations to why Lemeans worked so hard to keep this one and only echidna in the Plain's camp alive and present. When this lone echidna stepped onto the first of three steps up to Knuckles, did the Guardian relax his stance and gave more room so Christian's timid voice could reach the ears that really mattered.

"Yes, Guardian?" Christian greeted with a undergrowth of sorrow lacing his heavy tone.

"Please, man," Knuckles waved, "you can cut that out here."

A knitted brow in confusion. "Then why did you call me?"

Knuckles held his breath for maybe a second, and Christian caught it, his stare dissipating between them. "The reason why we came here–"

The weighted voice of Rotor plowed through the soft undertone each echidna was now trying to score. "Hey, what's this about 'why we came here?'"

Turning his head over his shoulder to the cockpit, and grabbing Christian by the arm, Knuckles spoke to the two occupants in the cabin, hosting the brown echidna so Hershey and Rotor could see his face. "This is Christian...his wife was taken two days ago."

"Two days?" Hershey said in a musing voice, almost startled when she stole a look to Christian and Knuckles. "That was when we intercepted–"

"Yeah, we know," Knuckles jumped in, skipping past the already trivial, but glad he really wasn't going to have to remind. "Rotor? Did you all get anything new from that encryption?"

A shake of the walrus' head, though his eyes were forward across the windscreen. "Just tid-bits of simple words, nothing more conclusive."

With all this, Knuckles lowered his voice to squeeze in the one word he knew was still fresh on their minds. "And _Chameleon_?"

"Nothing new on that either," Rotor replied. He was ready to add the recent few messages until a inhaling breath asked for a pause:

"I might," said Christian almost below a whisper laced with something resembling fortitude.

This got what Knuckles was aiming for in reaction; Rotor jerked his head over, nearly taking the yoke with him, while Hershey's full attention was grabbed in a whisk and now forcing her chocolate eyes to pierce through her goggles.

In turn, Knuckles brought his even face to Christian. "Okay, from the top, man."

Watching the brown echidna swallow almost hurt, but seeing his determination come back from it was nearly exhilarating. "The day before you came, we were forced to watch ten other mobains get executed because two of _your_ people wanted to break out."

"What people? Ours? From Knothole?" Hershey asked–almost spitting rapidly–coming from what Knuckles knew contributed to her husband's better interests.

A nod from the brown echidna's head.

"Any names?" Hershey shot next.

"They said they were from Knothole but they kept their names close to themselves." Christian turned his head back to the cargo floor, Knuckles watching his arms lay still down at his sides, as if the former-EST officer stripping away what little defense he had in against his inner-tranquility while gathering courage to inflict himself with a coming pain. "All I know is that they seemed really hard pressed to get out...and fast."

Rotor faced him with an honest look of caring, though his voice reflected cause for alarm. "Did you think it had anything to do with the cipher or our problem?"

A shake from Christian's head, but this time exhuming a puzzled look across his muzzle. "Cipher? I don't know anything about a cipher expect what the Guardian has told me–and that isn't much." Waiting, he saw the walrus got the rut of his observation before he continued. "But..." He swallowed the tightness down in his throat when Kripta's scared, fleeting face flashed in his mind. "I think my wife and my brother-in-law might have something to do with it."

From the corner of his eyes Knuckles witnessed Rotor and Hershey doing a meek double take between them while still focusing on the controls all the while he moved closer to Christian with a crisper stare. Knuckles really wasn't liking the coming drilling he was about to press on to this shattered EST officer, but he knew he had to keep what ever ball Christian was on going for a larger sake than his feelings. "And when did this happen?...Before or after the executions?"

"After?" Christian replied, his stare holding away from the Guardian, his teeth becoming gritted.

"And this was being watched?"

A quick but distant voice. "Always."

Rotor shoved his face inside the entrance way from the cockpit. "Which means so was your prisonbreak!"

Knuckles for a brief instance rolled his eyes. "Yeah...but."

The Guardian's held sentence motioned Hershey to look at him. "Yeah, but what?"

"You don't know about the fueling depot, do you?" Knuckles snorted, leaning back on the small metal wall.

"No, what fueling depot?"

Christian answered gravely. "We've been drilled and lately refining fuel for most of Eggman's Eggfleet. The fueling process was a new gig as of a week ago. Two ships came in and left about two days ago."

Knuckles added with a minuet snarl, "And Sonic said he saw four more coming in for some go-go juice,"

"Okay," Rotor put in resignedly, keeping his head forward this time, "so what does this have to do with _Chameleon_? Is this just a side operation? Something to divert us?"

But his head didn't stay locked at the windscreen when Christian's emotionless voice slithered inside the cockpit.

"My wife and brother-in-law are Chameleons."

If Hershey was aiming for a plainer voice, she failed with a leaking shrill that came behind it from the snap of her head to the echidnas. "Say what!?" She saw her snip bark coward Christian's head, eyes seeking the floor. "And they were taken?" she asked with a compassionate voice she felt gifted to have drawn up.

"Yes," Christian replied, nearly breaking down.

"Okay," Rotor said, twitching his head back and forth from the instrument panel to Christian and Knuckles, and back again, "so what would Eggman want with two chameleons?"

A short pause from the four seemed to be an intruder rather than a reprieve. Watching Christian didn't help Knuckles psyche either as he was trying to remember some far flung observation from the night before. The brown echidna's muzzle was turning pale, his body dramatically looking frail all the while Knuckles felt helpless to stop it. But it did help him remember one factor.

"_Sickness; a different voice."_

"You said you were all being watched during the executions?" Knuckles had asked almost under his breath.

Christian released a shallow nod. "Yes...a voice was telling us all this would happen again. But it didn't sound right," he said on a puzzled note, looking up to the Guardian.

A low monotone voice enforced Knuckles' searching eyes. "Yeah, David had said it sounded nasally."

Another nod from Christian mixed with sureness this time. "Yea, he did. And even with those poor speakers at the camp, it didn't even sound like Eggman if he was sick." He turned his attention to Knuckles, eyes looking for a past enlightenment. "What was it Antoine had said last night? It sounded like someone else–"

_THUMP!!_

Knuckles shifted his body just as fast as his mind was sprung to find where the muffled thud had come from. No sooner had his eyes peered to the left side of where his senses pinpointed to the origin, to that of what had etched in his mind, and dispelling of what for the longest time he swore he was the only capable person in the world to be known for such a look, was that of Hershey: She was flexing her left fist, wrestling her fingers to break the ball her hand had become while attempting to resettle it back on the yoke with her other hand. Her heavy breathing was just faint enough to hear, her mouth open to seep in the air as her lips and teeth were on the verge of chattering. And her stare could have melted the glass in front of her, much less dissolve every atom that composed her goggles.

And her voice could have liquified the hardest of metals known on Mobius. Soft to the touch of the ears, but jagged to those he heard it:

"_Not_ again."

Christian's voice nearly rattled Knuckles. "What do you mean, _not again_?"

Hershey's eyes faltered, nearly shutting them in despair who only Knuckles and Rotor were beginning to understand why. "He's doing it again," she cringed, her voice laying into a seethe.

"Don't be quick to judge, Hershey," Rotor said under a quieter, optimistic tone.

A timid shake of her head. "No, Rotor. Not with him. Not with what _he_ did to me. Not with how _he_ left _us_."

Christian stepped up to the cockpit, his eyes burning. "Hey, my wife is involved with this–Mind leveling!"

But he was ignored.

"Hershey, we don't know for sure," Rotor replied on a note of reflex. "It could have been a bot with a bad voice box for all we know."

A tilt of her head that brought her scathing eyes to the walrus. "I won't put it past him, Rotor. He has more treachery up his sleeves than what Ivo could possibly ever possess in his girth." A quick inhale. "I'm sure my husband would bet the royal jewels on it too."

Christian raised his voice, his head darting to the walrus and over to the calico cat. "Who are we talking about?"

Knuckles voice was tempered. "A lackey!" –Christian's head turned to look over his shoulder at the stiffened Guardian, his arms folding at his chest– "A very dangerous lackey."

"A lackey?" Christian peered back inside the cockpit. "How's a lackey dangerous...specially from the voice I heard? Sounds like he could never amount to anything."

Hershey's head rolled over to the brown echidna like a watch jewel. Christian had never seen any graver eyes. "He has...he's killed his uncle once before, and in the process, nearly whipped us out and killed our Heiress, Princess Sally. He's as much of a weasel as a certain bounty hunter we know."

Knuckle wrestled for an even voice, "I'd bump him up above Nack with the way this is going,"

Rotor's head fidgeted. "Yeah, where is this going? We have two chameleons that have been taken," –He leaned over to Christian– "my apologies, friend." And it was met with a subtle nod, but not one to crack the anger in the EST officer's face. "Okay, yes that is a match with the cipher, but it doesn't explain why he's using two ciphers–" Rotor's stop at mid-sentence grabbed Christian's and Hershey's attention. When the walrus nodded to himself he brought his voice a little deeper, squirming in his seat as if bracing himself to expel it:

"Two ciphers–one we can read, one we can't."

Hershey brought her eyes to Rotor. "It's two prong, Rotor. It always has with him. One Eggman can read, one he can't."

Like if his head was floating moss on a turbulent shore, Rotor's nodding head came in ripples. "Yeah, Hershey...he's at it again." With a quick glance over to the right wing, he went on, "We need to tell Knothole of this fast."

"Not until we get there," Hershey observed in a steep voice. "We say anything over unsecured transmission, we could start whatever is going on faster. We need to drop our cargo and break for Knothole as soon as mobian possible."

"Okay," Rotor said nodding his head, "and hope Shadow and Espio find something."

Knuckles voice hammered in surprise. "Say what? Where's Espy, and what's his he doing with _Shadow_!?"

Hershey and Rotor traded glances with each other before Hershey became the victor and broke away to Knuckles. "Geoff has them chasing after the cipher."

Rotor jumped in, almost sounding excited. "Yeah, we were able to get a good idea where many of those messages were going, but it wasn't pinpoint. Hershey's husband though–and I'd hate to be interrogated by him," –Hershey nearly laughed– "got Shadow's head to remember something and put him on a warpath."

"In essence," Hershey interjected calmly, "Geoffrey has Shadow out looking for revenge but with a purpose for us."

With wide eyes filled with astonishment, and mouth trying not to gap open, Knuckles voice flowed with shock. "How did _he_ manage that, and got Espio to go along."

Hershey's smirk held a knowing twinkle in her face. "My husband is gifted." And with that thought, her head turned to another of her Geoffrey's kind. "Christian, right?" The brown echidna nodded his head before looking back to Knuckles for assurance, which was given with motivating purple hues. "Christian, I hope you understand of the questions I'm about to ask you, but we need to narrow down a few other things before we go head long into what we are fearing–you understand?" A quick, but shaky nod. "Okay, how did you three get captured?"

From the way Christian had hunched his back and lowered his head, Knuckles wasn't sure if he needed to shove him to go for the questions.

A weak voice came from the brown echidna's lips. "We and a few of the many other species on Angel Island were just trying to survive while resisting Eggman's and the Dingoes' rule. We had no way to connect to the Legion or of that with the Brotherhood."

"How did you get separated from the EST?" Knuckles asked in an avuncular tone.

He could see the pain the question brought to Christian; the stripped officer nearly buckled to the floor from the memory. "The fall of Echidnaolopis." His voice choked, tears trying to fall. "Everything happened so fast, all I could think was to get my family and at least try to get them to an evacuation zone and hold the line there. But as soon as I got Kripta and her brother Anzio, most of the city was overtaken by the bots and Dingos." His voice shuttered as did his body from his crumbling emotions. "Guardian...there were dead everywhere...and I couldn't do a thing but run out of the city. I didn't leave my post. I was under order's by Constable Remington to get my family and anyone else I could find and lead them to an evacuation zone. But there were none...there was nothing."

Knuckles was about to place a warming mitt over Christian's shoulder, but Hershey pressed her voice through the cockpit. "And how did you all get captured?"

A shake of his head to bring on his next irritable memories. "The Eggbots had tracked us down from a few raids I helped orchestrate. By the time we were grabbing our weapons they'd killed at least half of the population I'd helped save." He brought his eyes up and over to Knuckles. "It ended just as fast as it began, Guardian. They brought in their transport ships, shackled us and took us to the mainland."

"How many echidnas went with you?" Knuckles asked, his mind now weighing on the sake of his own people. He was now hating this questioning more the Christian knew. It was the charge and picture of his failure to his people.

"It was just me, Guardian. I was the only echidna taken...the other four that fled with me...I don't know."

"And where did they take you from there?" Hershey went on, her head straight at the windscreen. If she'd look at him one more time, she'd stop herself from asking anymore. She had to be distant from emotions. She had to be distant from compassion. Other lives were on the line.

"Straight to the Great Plains. It's were all combatants are sent." A shallow gulp. "Lemeans told me when I arrived that Eggman figured the strong would be better suited for labor rather than his Egg-grapes."

Knuckles poked in before Hershey could continue. "Then why all the children and mothers?"

"They've been sent there for the past month. From what Justin and David said they were all from Edgewood. How they got captured, I don't know."

"Okay," Hershey broke in, "so how long have you been there?"

"Two months, milady."

"Just two?" Hershey asked in surprise, however her voice leaning.

"Yes, milady, just two months."

A moment passed in silence for Hershey, her eyes rolling with her mind. "Alright, that I needed."

"So, am I through?" Christian asked Hershey in a relieved tone?

"Yea, you can go back and have a seat, sir."

Turning his back to her and Rotor he said, "I hope I had helped."

"You did, Christian," Rotor replied encouraging for the echidna's soul. "You were of great service to us in this. You've opened a lot of doors."

A nod was all he could manage before stepping down.

Knuckles was there, finally offering his mitt to his shoulder with gracious, tuned eyes. "You gonna be alright?"

"I don't know...I'm praying she's alive, but I don't know if my touch to her has left me. I just don't know."

The tears came. For the life of Knuckles the tears came and he wished his would come too. But something held them back; something had more control over his own inner emotions that being outward was a far off place to reach. So, he just squeezed Christian's shoulder a little harder, tried to give him a smile but it falling short of the mark, and held to the other echidna until he had stepped away.

Knuckles didn't have the heart to look back to see if Christian just dropped where he stood or reclaimed his seat on the canvas bench beside Mikhail. Instead, he took the two needed steps to press his mug inside the cockpit. Hershey was still smoldering while Rotor went to sightseeing over the right wing, Knuckles guessing correctly that the walrus was also putting logic to its paces. "So what does all this mean?" the Guardian finally asked.

"I don't know," Hershey slipped in with a pensive voice. "If they were there for two months, then...I don't know, Knuckles. I want to say spur of the moment of Snively's part–but this could be a long awaited hatched plan, possibly thought through while he was soaking up the space with us. But..." Hershey wavered her head before casting a stare over the left wing. "I don't know. I'm not him, and I'm glad for that."

From there, silence, save for the twin turbine engines at a steady run. Between the three of them not one stare, glance, or nod was exchanged. Only eyes forward, looking to the higher clouds above them in exchange for troubled thoughts. The horizon had a haze that seemed to signal where the curvature of Mobius began however obscuring the shallow crest to either side of the windscreen. From Knuckles' stance, both his arms supporting him like a bridge across the two pilot seats, he could see the land was beginning to flatten again, remembering that David had said they were to fly over a canyon of some kind before getting to Edgewood. That bit was ending; the large patch of flat white dirt, or sand, was just ahead from the tawny formations they were passing...and beyond that, clear bright but dark green.

A chirp blurted from the console, bringing with the sound a red flashing light from the deep center of the console.

"Transmission," Rotor announced almost as a scoff.

"If it's Amadeus, don't say a thing about Snively," Hershey practically ordered.

"Don't have to tell me twice," Rotor countered, reaching over with his right hand and pushing down the blinking light.

A jingle Knuckles knew there was no hope for a song to be made by it followed, and with it a loud and irritated voice:

"_Okay, I just got done grilling Sonic! Is one of his cohorts around over there?_" thundered in Amadeus Prower.

Knuckles inhaled to qual his coming rage. "Hey, you know what, just open the door and I'll fly home from here," he droned, stopping his coming conviction when he hand twitch and Lemeans' letter scratched at his fur under his mitt.

The reaction from the two bystanders was almost comical, if not done out of sympathy: both heads had turned to him, trying hard not to roll their eyes. Though looking at him it was Hershey with an air of wanting to be absent from what was coming who stole the show to bring a serious act. "Knuckles is here with us on the bridge."

"_What were my orders from the other day?"_ Amadeus cued in like he was physically there and just spied Knuckles between Hershey and Rotor in a dwindling crowd.

Crossing his arms firmly across his chest, the Guardian beamed a harder gaze than what he knew Amadeus was possibly possessing. If the fox wanted condescending attributes, he was going to get them from the best player on the planet. "Things _had_ changed," he replied after the moment it took to apply a stiff structure of his body.

"_And I understand_," came the General's reply, this time sounding a little calmer and rewarding. "_But I can't stress as to have some patients_. _If they suspect we can trace their messages or have some of their ciphers figured out–_"

"Yea, I know, _General_: they blast the satellites and they redo the codes," Knuckles cut-in taking a step further to place himself in the cockpit, looking at the console with sharpening eyes–if that was where the mike was. "I might have been _hatched_ during the day, but I wasn't _hatched_ yesterday. We did what we had to do, and what we've been doing before _I helped_ yank you back here to take over."

There was a silence that both Hershey and Rotor wondered if Amadeus had clicked off the comm-link and silently bided weather Tails was hearing his father for the first time cursing to make a sailor blush. But a heavy sigh came through the speaker. "_Forgive me Guardian...but the situation on Mobius has changed–and this fox hasn't adapted yet_."

A slow nod came from Knuckles, but he knew his voice had to tell Prower that he had accepted his apology. "We need to talk about this on the ground," he said in soft tone almost like silk.

"_I can assure that will happen_," came Amadeus' not so subtle tone. Knuckles felt it was more ordained as a promise and not a threat.

"_Anyways_..." returned Prower's voice but filtered of any enriched argument tones. "_Tail's needs to speak with you_."

A short air of stillness to allow cleaner breaths to be heard from Rotor and Hershey before a quieter, however vigilant younger voice jumped from the overhead speaker above Rotor. "_Hey guys, you need to start dropping to about five-thousand feet, and adjust heading to_..." Knuckles's eyes drifted up to the speaker as he knew Tails was looking down at his gauges from whatever craft he was in. For once, he thought he had a flicker of sympathy for Sonic riding with all three male Prowers. _"Or is it the other way around...poor guys."_

"_Adjust to heading one-two-one, Rotor_."

The only girl leaned forward at the instrument panel. "Tails, it's Heshey, we're is this Edgewood. A guy named David gave us a few general directions–"

Amadeus' voice cut in a little excited–taking on a different person in Knuckles' ears. "_We have it in the data banks. Had to request it from Nicole, this place and file are old._"

"But you know about this place?" Hershey nearly gasped.

"_Knew about it...Edgewood was a refugee colony I helped establish during the first shots of the Great War_." A soft chuckle echoed from the speaker. "_I'm actually surprised it's still a thriving village from what Nicole had said about it_."

The sound of fur, flesh, bone and fur again bounced through the cock-pit with an exaggerated grunt. When Knuckles' head turned with Rotor's, they both saw Hershey's hand slapping up against her forehead. "Yeah, now I remember...Edgewood. Geoffrey said there was a little town he was devastated that he couldn't help at the very edge of the Great Forest," she said, sounding absentmindedly, removing her hand from her brow. "Only could a few times. Said he remembered the place from something his dad, Ian, had said."

"_Geoffrey's father was more optimistic than I, or the King was about our situation_. _He was almost deathly wrong_." Amadeus' voice left with a suddenness that attuned Knuckles' more than it was–realizing now that he was leaning in further beside Hershey and Rotor with his mitts clasped at either seat. He could hear voices being rapidly exchanged. "_Hey, Tails is telling me we need to cut the chatter_," Amadeus returned, sounding a little more plain.

Hershey had by now glanced over her left shoulder and was looking down. "Yeah, roger that, Prower. Got you on our left wing now."

"_Okay, it's not to far from here. There's a large bare clearing from the canyons east of the canyons we're flying over now and then the beginnings of the Great Forest_._ Shouldn't be hard to miss any of the structures from there_."

"Roger," Rotor replied this time, picking up his hand from the yoke and placing his thumb on the red light he'd pressed early directly in front of him. "_Turbo-Lifter_ out." And he pressed it and the static and Amadeus' voice went silent.

"Well, that went better than I was dreading," Hershey scoffed almost immediately.

With his head still forward, scanning with his lavender eyes at the coming green expanse, Knuckles said with a low, blunt voice, "It isn't over, yet."

Negative gravitation forces felt like a strong hand, lifting up at his stomach and gradually shoving it skyward toward's his heart. For a moment, the Guardian thought it was some form of punishment until he felt his body began to sway left toward Hershey, his eyes searching down at her arms and hands to see them pushing the yoke forward towards the panel and turning the twin handles to the right. The horizon had dipped and banked, like traveling up-hill on an up-sloping bank towards the south in an easterly direction. The textures of the land were of a vibrancy that Knuckles for the time his eyes had finally took in the sight of the ebbing white sand, to tawny earth, to a darkening shade of green that exploded further out to a point that the blue overcast of the curvature of the atmosphere and the ground of mobius met. It all seemed to be of on plain of twin existence that the line was faintly hard to see. The sun was starting her last leg to darkness. To obscurity. And he felt the natural waning of his sense and physical strength eloping into fatigue. How he wanted to stay awake and alert. He wanted to fall asleep when _she_ returned. It was his now dying purpose in this day before it ended.

And with his mind freshly tracing over her pink, fur texture and physic, his voice was already escaping away from his lips. "Any word from Julie-Su?"

Just the way Hershey had responded and with such quickness begged Knuckles to wonder if she had forgotten the pang in his heart. "No, nothing. Probably won't until they either get back to Knothole or they are back on our side of the hemisphere."

He slumped. He sighed breathlessly. His arms at his shoulder cuffs began to burn with the added stress he was inducing himself to. But he kept his weak position straddled between the seats as his form of torture to deviate the pain away from his suffocating heart.

"Hey, I see it," said Rotor brightly, throwing his hand and index finger out to the windscreen. "One, o'clock."

With the help of Rotor's enthraled voice, Knuckles pressed up on the seats' backs and rose to pan his eyes to the right. Amongst the green he was entranced with before, speckles of tan and white didn't match the foliage backdrop. But from his vantage point and still being far away that was all he could discern. "Are you sure?" Knuckles asked, soon after kicking himself even after asking the same question already.

"Red," Rotor began, the Guardian smiling as the walrus did his best Sonic impression, "I'm way past sure that's Edgewood."

Hershey let in on a more grievous tone. "Better sit in the back and strap in. That landing we did out in the Great Plains was a little rough, and we were light."

Turning his head back, and making a displeasing, innocent face at his choices before returning looking back to the black and white cat. "Yeah, sure."

He moved off the steps with as much grace as a stocky shouldered football player might mingle in a quilt show. Wyn came to mind with his own movements. Within two steps he was surrounded at his calves and knees with much different souls he didn't remember rescuing from the half hour that had since past. They looked warmer with bliss than scarred from their ordeals. They seemed rested, like they were ready for an ordinary day at some common job. Not beaten, tattered...beyond the reaches of hope. Over the dull roar of the twin turbine engines he swore he heard laughter. He swore his attuned eyes were picking out smiles and conversations. But dismayed that it was all scattered before him.

With another sweep of his eyes a truer picture came to him; they were all the same people. Still he could pick out glum faces and bodies akin to disintegrated rocks, still holding the shape of mobians large and small, but wrecked with the tiredness, the despair he thought had vanished. Why didn't those few smiles permeate in the air and uplift the rest of the people? Was it him being the one obstructing this? He could picture himself standing like he was, and the picture did bother him; stiff with uncertainty, closed with his emotions.

And when he saw himself clunch his white mitts into bold fist in frustration, he felt the top of his hand get scratched. _"Paper. The envelope!"_ he shouted straight to himself. His fingers worked faster than his brain, pinching gently just inside the cuff at his wrist and pulling out Lemean's last mark on the world. Looking at the front with his furrowed purple eyes he didn't see anything handwritten on the front. Flipping it around revealed a tiny "X" in the center where the sealed flap met the body of the envelope. But lifting it just a degree higher in the air, and with the light just right, he could see the transparent shadow of the content inside. It was almost completely flush with the edges of the envelope itself, not even a centimeter to spare.

A shudder and rapidly followed by more negative G forces raced up from his feet nearly forcing him to sit down. Balance almost to the four winds, he instinctively threw his free right hand behind in a long sweep and caught the wall, and himself, before he fell flat on his back at the menacing knives that were the steps up to the cockpit. Pivoting around, he sought after the left side of the entryway and started stepping carefully in the small patches of holes. First he tip-toed past a male fox and jaguar girl that Knuckles for the brief moment he witnessed them were a couple, holding hands, cuddling with their chins and cheeks over each other. Then three steps brought him over and nearly on top of an old–and with a disgruntled gruff with closed eyes–resigned brown male kangaroo. "Sorry," Knuckles innocently apologized, in which nothing was relaid of acceptance.

From the cockpit he heard Rotor's voice as his right hand braced at the wall. "Throttles to half." And just before the inevitable sound of the engines expunging the loud whines into a softer chorus, Knuckles found the closest and opened spot on the course, textured metal floor and sat down, crossing his legs to make the most of the cramped space.

Plopping down, he was greeted with an earnest smile from a young, and to a degree of freakishly thin, female coyote. Her fur was a combination of a dark yellow, tawny, and black in a kind of morbid ink block, and her flowing long stringy brunet hair crying for a washing Her clothes, like all the others around him, where little more than rags ready to be used as kindle to start a fire, much less keep one going.

And she was mother. The girl's smile echoed this when her face was lite up when Knuckles had sat down before she swept the happiness below her to young coyote baby boy sitting in the open space surrounded by her crossed legs–of which Knuckles was almost embarrassed and ashamed to look at due to seeing more of them than he wanted. But he couldn't help the situation of her outfit.

All he could was cut loose with smile; straight at her without saying a word and then down to the toddler. The kid didn't have a shirt on but he seemed to be lucky enough to have a pair of shorts. He was wide eyed, Knuckles saw, looking at this strange long haired, red being in front of him and his mother, not knowing or caring that the hair was actually flesh and fur embodying tissue and blood. And the kid's eyes widen further, almost bulging, and Knuckles witnessed the twisting frown than he knew his face was starting to mold into. _"Oh, no!"_

Just before he could change his face into a smile, or at least bring his hands up to calm the little boy, the wails came crashing at him like a water spicate unleashing it's cold, nerve shattering force upon him.

"Oh, Josh..." the mother said in a shushing voice, bouncing the little coyote on her the edges of her knees.

"What did I do?" Knuckles asked a bit frightened and guilty.

The mother shook her face absently. "Oh, nothing," she said, tucking her face and muzzle around to Josh's to nuzzle him. "You just get scarred quickly, that's all."

"_Or maybe I'm just bad with kids?"_ Knuckles echoed to himself. Kneecaps, his half baby brother, resounded–and at some points–ached at his mind.

"Gear down!" shouted Hershey's voice from afar.

The groan of hydraulic motors pushed through the stifling air and even over Josh's crying. The engines than began to drown in a dim quietness.

"Flaps down two notches," he overheard Rotor's voice. Looking around the corner, Knuckles was amazed of how in control he was over Hershey.

When he swung his head back around he noticed the coyote mother was singing to Josh, who had now quieted and was looking to smile.

"More flaps," Rotor announced, causing Knuckles to peer back over his shoulder. "Watch your airspeed."

"I am this time," rebuked Hershey.

"Don't tell she doesn't do this often?" Knuckles asked almost in protest.

Hershey strayed a barbing look at Knuckles. "It's my forth time, Knux. Do you mind?"

He shrugged. "I do now." And just as she turned back around: "Please don't kill us."

Not waiting to see the murderous scorn coming his way, the Guardian faced back to the kid and his mother, flashing his tongue between his teeth under wide, mischievous eyes. This time the kid giggled, but the mother wasn't smiling. "What?" Knuckles said after retrieving his continence. "It's just encouragement."

The tilt of heard brought on her disapproving face and narrowed eyes.

"Throttles back, Hershey," Rotor barked this round.

The engines seemed to have died with a whimper that was the only evidence that they were still running.

"Flare–flare—flare, Hershey!"

Knuckles felt as if he was going to slid straight to the cargo ramp when Hershey had to have jerked the nose up. And just before he could get his breath back from the near fall the _Turbo-Lifter_ slammed to the ground, then what his senses knew was back up into the air before straightening his tale and waited for the next slam. It came, and he nearly felt his lungs run out his nostrils.

"Reverse engines!"

A roar began to beat down on the side of the fuselage. Knuckles felt his back force up against the wall as the _Lifter_ was brought to a slow stop–wondering for a split second if the mobians in front of him were going to pile right on top and crush his body. When motion had ceased and the engines dying for sure, Knuckles realized he had to breathe if he wanted to live for another minute. With wandering eyes and two gulps down he climbed to his shoes. "Well?" he asked.

Hershey stepped through the cockpit entrance and down on the cargo deck. "We're here!" she bolster with a wide smile.

The rush of cheering voices had Knuckles in awe before a grin leapt from his lips.

Tails had described to him of what school was like at one time or another. He told him that, _"You are cooked up all stupid day as they try to spoon feed you all this junk that you will never use in your life, and when they release from school, you just want to run away and cling to Aunt Sally for the rest of the day...begging her not to throw you back in the morning."_ But Knuckles remembered Tails looking at him with a very straight and puzzled face, asking him why _he_ had _asked_ him what school was like. He reflected the time very fondly; him, Julie-Su and the Chaotix had finally found their place in Knothole, and he had just walked Tails from this _school_ that Sally said she was too busy to _escort_ Miles from so he wouldn't run off and not do his homework. And he remembered fondly that he didn't answer. He remembered the crushing feeling he had that at his age, he had to ask what school life was like from Tails. For he never had been to one. He was a Guardian...Locke taught him the things Miles was learning...

And then he had to learn them on his own..._on his own_.

But here, in front of him was why he had remembered his and Tails' little walk back to the kit-fox's hut and into the books–which he know realized he was helping Miles cheat by snapping the answer like he was in some sort of contest to prove he was actually smart. It was the running from school after being released that helped him put what Tails had said into perspective.

"_But there are so many Aunt Sallies, here."_

Children led mothers to fathers. Fathers led by their children to mothers they thought were dead. Mothers calling out names...many left unanswered with hearts wrenching screams and cries. He wanted to close his eyes but he forced himself instead to look away. With eyes still wide open, he descried St. John's sent beavers holding the old and sick, helping them to other open arms...to others who could help.

A girl's shrieking, crying voice grabbed Knuckles' attention from the sidelines he laid claim to. "Mikhail—MIKHAIL!"

Out from the mass of bodies, many being held by compassionate beings, others finding none but sitting down and enjoying something Knuckles was still puzzled about, and what had darted through the gaps he could see through was a running girl; a pure white wolf, her face raining tears, glistening in the yellow hue to Knuckles' left, her dress and flannel shirt that of a farmer's bride, and her arms and legs muscular to match. And just as his eyes had finally fixated on her, Mikhail was suddenly into view, arms wide open, his face on the verge of crying. And he nearly was struck to the ground when the girl swallowed him in her arms at full speed.

"Tania! My love!" Knuckles strained to hear Mikhail shout out as the beagle held his love and twirled her around in a small circle. "Did you miss me, _Da_?"

"_Da_, my Slavic dog, husband," Tania curtly replied in a hep of laughs and cries. And yet, she didn't have an accent like Mikhail. "I thought you were dead...left me for that woman goddess." Just as Knuckles was about to see Mikhail reply, she laced the lips of her love with hers that buckled his knees and sent both beagle and wolf to the grass.

"I never would've guessed," Knuckles said aimlessly and in shock at himself.

A rougher voiced boomed over his own, loaded with authority, strained with disappointment.

"Knuckles the Echidna, you have a lot of explaining."

Lowering his head, and a good stare at his white crescent at his chest did Knuckles slowly turn, his face emotionless, save for the anger he felt wanting to breathe out of ever strain of fiery fur. The eye patch of General Amadeus Prower was perhaps the only object on him that could seriously have any chance of matching or defeating Knuckles' stone posture.

"You realize what you, Sonic and Antoine could have jeopardized?" Amadeus thrust out with a lung full of bitter air. He marched right up to Knuckles and jabbed his finger straight into the Guardian's chest. "There's a reason why I'm making these suggestions in holding back!"

Knuckles' tone was cool but forceful. "Point taken; _suggested_." Leaning into Amadeus, he locked eyes straight at to him, yet Amadeus was two inches taller. He was on the verge of calling the seasoned fox the most vulgaris word of a rectum. "Tell me, _General_, are there any other wars you plan on losing, 'cause I want you to name 'em and I'll make sure I'm not involved!"

"You all could've come back and grabbed St. John and a lot more force," Amadeus fired back, casting aside Knuckles indirect insult at his own horrors of war. "You could have saved a lot more lives–"

"We didn't have a choice, _sir_," snapped the Guardian. He pursued his mind for ammunition for the coming counterstrike. What he found had almost melted his emotions and him to the grassy floor. The blotted bodies from yesterday was haunting him to a mental wreck.

But Amadeus didn't see the disturbed face that flashed by. To the fox it had the same look of Knuckles being incense. "No choice? Okay, what prompted that? What prompted you all to forget about the boogie and to call out a stronger force?"

He cringed visible. "How about a mass grave I rolled into?"–Amadeus' stance faltered, making him step back; he didn't feel his face collapse in a sympathetic rictus– "How about seeing a kid no more my age die in protecting us?" Knuckles laid further in with his tight voice, though holding his ground. "Is that enough for a snap decision, _General_." He waited for a pause, if not for another reaction. Amadeus was absolutely silent. Only the rejoicing mobians behind him were the sounds. "You know I can get better battle advice from my equal than you."

Prower had to will his hands to come up to ease down the burning echidna. "Alright," he said, his voice still exerting command, "look, son..." Holding his breath, he settled on his thoughts. "I know full well what you're going through, Knuckles," –Amadeus strained his good eye at him– "Guardian."

Knuckles' head sank like a rock in soft mud to one side, and with it he turned away from Amadeus where his right shoulder aligned at him and his back was to the falling sun, crossing his arms. "You're not my father, so don't call me _son_." And yet, to Knuckles, Tails' father was acting just like Locke.

It didn't perturb Amadeus one bit. The General maneuvered just as easily to come around and be nose-to-nose to the echidna. "Knuckles, I've seen the blotted bodies–I've seen friends die–I've seen people get blown apart right in front of my eyes!"

"But _you_ still know_ your civilization _is still _alive_," Knuckles seethed in. "I don't know about mine."

Tightening his jaw was all he could do not place his full trump card on the table. But Knuckles wasn't leaving him any choice. He wanted to break it to him about what he knew of the other Guardian with a sit down chat. He wanted to tell him of the hidden honors buried in Aleutian's past. But Knuckles wasn't leaving him any choice. And like picking up from the same rhetoric the younger Guardian was trying to dodge, he kept rolling with it:

"And your _brother_ has seen the same horrors of war and battle as me."

Knuckles expression turned to frozen nitrogen. "What did you say...?"

Amadeus shook his head, beating past his temper before laying his eye back at Knuckles. "Your brother, Aleutian, has seen the same horrors as I have, Knuckles." A curt pause for refocus. "And if he's seen what I've seen, and did what I had to do, then he's had the same dreams, the same flashbacks–"

Knuckles shouted further than the top of his lungs, "How do you know this!?"

Amadeus could almost see tears welling up. He was stone stiff to reply upon witnessing this.

"You leave him outta this, you hear me!?" the Guardian went on, pointed his right mitt straight at Amadeus' blue tunic, and kept pounding. "You don't _ever_ talk to me about my brother that way when I hardly know him!"

A matching face, but arms tucking under themselves. "Then calm yourself, Guardian. I'm trying to help and I know you are too."

"Then stay outta my way–in fact stay out of our way! That's the best way you can help us!"

"Knuckles," Amadeus interjected, "I'm trying to do my job described and asked by the King!"

A mocking swivel of his head, dreads nearly waving. "Oh, I see...protecting your title. Now we're all doomed thanks to your ego."

"Not as fast as your headstrong temper!"

Knuckles kept his eyes locked to Amadeus' lone glaring irus, though finding his hard face screwing into a smirk "Unfortunately for you it runs in the family."

"And what I found out from today, it sure _does_," Amadeus slowly slipped in with a raised brow, like he was pressing his saber gently into an Overlander's rib cage for a long, painful...vengeful death.

Unfolding his arms, Knuckles stepped the last step right up to Amadeus' chest. All he had to do at this point was push him down from however he answered. And to his surprise, the fox didn't back down one iota. "What are you hiding from me?"

Amadeus could see the slow burning fuse disappearing away from Knuckles' lavender eyes, not knowing what was going to happen if it burned out. So he took a breath and leveled his vocal cords as he was hoping from the onset to possess when he thought he was going to have this conversation in the first place. "Knuckles, I was asked by the King to go and investigate something your brother had punched on a map two days ago. Your father was present when Aleutian did this."

"But did Elias tell him that he was sending you to find out," Knuckles' asked, his tone holding steady, but his eyes were loosening their focal hold.

Amadeus with ease shook his head. "No. He didn't make his decision until the morning after."

"The morning after?" spat Knuckles. And to Amadeus' surprised, he backed off with it. "The morning after?" he repeated, this time more as an accusing decry. "The same morning when you gave us our mission to head out here?"

Amadeus only nodded slightly, his ears flickering between the cheering and cries, and if the _Turbo-Lifter_ was firing back up, or if Tails was calling for him.

"Were you going to tell me about this!?"

"I _was_," Prower echoed back.

"When? Before or after?"

Amadeus tried rather hard not to roll his head and eyes. "On better terms and sitting down."

But for Knuckles, it wasn't the answer he was seeking. He took a long breath in, tilting his chin slightly at his chest. "I meant did you ever plan to tell me before you left, or were you even going to bother to ask me to go along?"

To lie to him had finally crossed Amadeus' mind...and Knuckles could see the thoughts rolling through fox's head. He didn't need a full set of eyes on the other party to know what was going on. He'd seen this played out so many times, and has lived with the damage it's all done every time. What had always hurt the worst was it was done by his own father...and always for his own good. It was at this time and silence between him and Miles Prower's father that Knuckles had never thought he'd be considering of leaving the Freedom Fighters to their own war, and returning home to face off with his father. Locke he could take getting lied to. His feelings of being hurt have all but desensitized him from his inner sanctum...knowing more times than what should be reasonable that the truth would come out and he'd be the one better for it. But as his being now stood–and from what he felt his body slowing lowering into his natural fighting stance that he seemed to always carrying in his everyday life, his face had melted to that of more than a frown; to a full contour of anger and pain–his inner soul wasn't going to take anything his father had done to him from the people and friends he was depending on to live and to fight another day. And what his face was shouting to Amadeus:

"_Don't you dare lie to me!–"_

Hershey's clean, famine voice charged up with authority broke Knuckles thoughts and the fox's stare."General Amadeus Prower...that's enough."

Before Knuckles could turn around, he was called out to. "Guardian, you need help?" He almost pivoted to address to Christian. He had almost told what he heard as the whole back-up squad in his favor to get lost and let him handle Amadeus...but just over the fox's shoulder, his attention went numb directly to something else he couldn't quite get, however felt something from it beckoning him.

"Excuse me," he blurted out, shoving beside Amadeus so quickly, the General was afraid to strain his neck if he'd follow him with his head.

"What...where's he going?" Amadeus asked just as puzzled as Christian had appeared when his eye drifted to the entourage in front of him. Sonic was shoulder to shoulder to Hershey's right while Rotor and Merlin, his hands nestled inside his sleeves out in front of him, were taking up the rear behind Christian.

"Probably off to save your life," Sonic said snidely. "General, dude, Sal should give you a metal for going toe-ta-toe with the Rad-Red and coming out stock clean!"

Amadeus shook it off. "You know what, I'll have Geoffrey and Princess Sally talk to him–"

"And they're going to agree with me," Hershey jumped in with the straightest of tones. "There is a lot going on here General you haven't the clue about. What all has transpired today and yesterday, General, I'm fully backing. And next, you will refrain yourself from talking down at any of the chaotix."

A quick glance to his brother. "Merlin?" he'd asked as if requesting for defense.

The elder fox roved his head in side his cloaked hood. "Amadeus," he said, hands leaving his sleeves and drifting towards the brown echidna in front of him, "you need to listen to this young man..." He looked to the brown echidna. "Christian, is it?"

The closer he walked, his arms straight out at his sides, fists balled, he could make out the taller of the trio looking on at the unannounced festivities. It was what caught Knuckles eyes to begin with: they were just standing there, the middle one his arms crossed while the other two where trolling the ground and wooden houses around them as if they were looking for a blind-mobian's lost money. At first he thought when he saw them behind Amadeus' angered body that these three were just standing away from everything while the rest of the town-dwellers could find their loved ones and leave others to be helped off the _Turbo Lifter_. But with a second stray of his attention to this steadfast trio, he noticed that they had taken on this lying-and-waiting posture. Knuckles has seen this before; reflected that he's held the same stance, watching things, ready to pounce on whatever he was waiting for to show itself. And somewhere between his counters and beatings from and to Amadeus, he remembered Lemeans' words:

"_Father of Justin...a ferret."_

As his steps drew him closer to the more of the round, kempt dwellings interspersed amongst formidable giant redwoods and tall walnut and maple trees that were the first line of sentry to the inner sanctum of the Great Forest, he could make out the mobian in the middle as the creature to deliver Lemeans' last written words. He stood in the middle. Taller, although Knuckles was judging this from a little more than ten meters away now, and his references were known smaller species beside his destination: a lightly brown furred shrew inside the baggy grey button shirt tucked into a pair of black heavy fabric pants. Standing left was a female sea otter, her dark and white furred face lean, yet her blue loose fitting jumpsuit, her sleeves rolled up, made it seem she was a few pounds heavier. She lacked any follicles on her head, but her feminine eyes looking worried at the crowd behind Knuckles made up for it.

But it was the ferret, his hands blacker than night but lightened into a pale texture at his forearms, that was the focus of Knuckles' direction and trained eyes. A half height taller than him, his casting eyes also telling worry while the rest of his continence stared on like asuffering predator, lying...waiting for its merciful death on its own terms. He had a firm chest under his somber lurid shirt. His hands gripped at his biceps while his arms were crossed, though his short ears at the top of his head where the only anatomy twitching. Knuckles saw with another three steps he was listening, the Shrew talking to him while all were looking on. He was still far away to make out any of the words until he planted his foot to the floor after he checked his shoulder. The words yanked his eyes over harder than he anticipated his reflexes to do:

"...I'm sure he's okay, Eric. He's probably helping the others that are still in the transport."

Knuckles' heart clutched at his throat upon seeing the ferret speak; his eyes never flinched.

"We would've seen him by now, councilman." The Guardian saw him sigh, chest slumping. "I'm not even sure if this is his same camp."

He wasn't more than six paces away from them. Heat was building at his neck and he was sure it wasn't from the setting sun behind him. Just hearing this overbearing looking ferret even speak had his courage going astray. The wink notion of who the subject possibly was made him want to forget about Lemeans' request nestled under his left mitt and make an about-face and continue his duel with Amadeus.

But his feet had carried him three steps further...and he was committed when the otter showered her hazel eyes upon him.

He stopped, arms firmly at his side, fists balled. His toned chest was pushing in and out with an anxiety he never thought could exist.

And his heart snapped aloud his inner cry of anguish when she spoke to him:

"Are you from the transport?"

He said nothing, staring at them what he hope wasn't eyes vacant of life.

"Are you from the Plain's Camp?" she asked. He wished she hadn't slightly kneeled to him, her head tilting in waiting for his answer.

His mind went blank. Not even a notion of inner feeling exhumed from his heart until he blinked and took in a short breath. _"If...if a bookworm..."_ It was at the edge of lips, wanting separation to claim a part of the world. He could her Lemeans' voice over his. Yet, he held it back, his eye ambling between the girl's face, the shrew's and then back to Eric. Why was it so hard? Even his half brother could repeat this. But his lips laid shut. Locked with one part of him decrying they remained locked for the rest of eternity. He didn't want to kill their hope. What he was about to say was going to snuff it out. Did Lemeans' knew what he was asking of him; to do _this_ along with delivering his message? Did the leopard have any forethought of how he might feel...if he was capable to fulfil his obligation?

But a scratching feeling jarred his eyes not to look down to his left hand but instead up to the ferret. When feeling of his self and body fought back the numbness of his thoughts, he felt his thumb and finger pinching at the white envelope, bringing it out from under his mitt.

And his lips were unlocked...his voice narrowed, soft.

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple?"

The shrew had only turned his head from the Guardian's riddle, looking at the otter, who'd only leaned back in, her eyes vacant of any reaction.

But it was the directed party whom had dropped his arms down close to his waist, hands folding on top of each other, and face softening, yet, shifting from waiting for hopeful news...to a powerful stare of sorrow mixed hauntingly with a phantom pain.

"Councilman?" the ferret said as dryly as the plain Knuckles had come from. He never looked to see if he got the shrew's attention. "Councilmen, I think our newcomers need welcoming now." Then his head finally moved and gazed upon the otter. "You can help him, Crystal, and you might be able to find Justin there." She met his gaze, her's softening to a silent protest. "Please?" he begged in a voice like an undercurrent in a drifting stream.

And she was swept away with it. Stepping between Knuckles and Eric, she went over and gently took the shrew by the arm. "Come, Councilmen. I'll take you to them."

"We shouldn't be in the way until their done. Besides, the mayor has met with the girl who looks to be in charge," the Councilmen replied.

Eric responded with a reasoning voice. "Sir, I think these people need all the warming faces we can give them. Please..."

Knuckles could see it in the shrew's eyes that something was up; just his head turning to the ferret and then over to him, but with cynical drawn eyes. "Alright," he said under a conceding sigh. "Alright, let's go, Crystal." A few steps further. "I swear you need to train your _man_ more. Not a place for a male to ask his wife to lead another man astray."

A smirk formed under the ferret's frown. He was watching the two mobians leave and it had drawn Knuckles attention, he too looking on as the otter had taken hold of the shrew's arm a little firmer and was talking to–

"–He reads a book."

Knuckles' head didn't snap back around nor did it resist. As his eyes adjusted to where the warning voice had come from, he felt his courage come back with the ferret's nodding head.

"Where's Cane?"

The standing Guardian shook his head ridiculously. "_Cane_?" He held the envelope out. "I was told to give this to a ferret..." He felt his throat tighten. "Justin's father."

"From who?" the ferret countered, as if the last phrase meant nothing. Had he the wrong ferret?

"_No...He answered the riddle."_

"Lemeans," he replied in a matching voice.

Eric took the envelope from Knuckles' hand gently. "And where is he?" he asked rapidly. His voice was now grave. When Knuckles didn't answer, he looked down to him after examining the back of the envelope. "Lemeans...where is he? Why did he trust you to give me this message."

To his own discomfort, his reply came out like he was on autopilot. Like he was losing control of himself somehow. "He didn't make it." –The ferret eyed him more directly; almost like he was hurt– "He died in helping us."

The ferret's mouth was gapping just enough to let air slip in.

Knuckles held his ground, watching then Eric opening the envelope and taking out the message, reading it with fast eyes before crumbling it devastatingly in his hands. For a split second, he thought he saw the ferret cringe in grief before his face turned away.

"What was asked of you is done. You can go back now," the ferret said resignedly.

He felt like he was being dismissed, brushed away from a table he hadn't yet sat down to. "Hey wait ah minute! I came to you with this and your rejecting me. I saw this guy _die_ and after delivering his last written words you just want me to up-and-go?"

A narrowed glance. "Yes." And the ferret slowly turned around.

Knuckles stepped forward. "Hey," lunged out his barking voice, "don't you dare turn your back on me. I have questions!"

"Don't we all," the ferret said as he started to move away.

A step forward more with a tightening face. "He said I looked like someone he knew." Even with his inner thoughts ramming around his head, he saw the ferret suddenly stopping. "He said I remembered of someone he trusted." He eased a breath in to calm his voice. "And I know there isn't many echidna's roaming around here."

The ferret gave a daunting gaze across his shoulder. "I wouldn't know him. And I couldn't tell _you_ if I did." He straightened his head, sighing dismissively. "Besides, what interest do you have over one of your own kind?"

The Guardian nearly launched himself at him, holding himself back by almost collapsing his chest to quell the inner rage boiling over. "Their my people. Is that enough?"

But something inside him was telling him there was more even in his own question of why he wanted to know. Lemeans' address about someone that looked just like _him_...who he'd trusted...because he was like _him_.

The ferret's back hunch just a degree that Knuckles felt a slight feeling of victory coming from it. Eric turned, slowly returning to the echidna, surprising him when he knelt down on one knee.

His eyes were blue, but Knuckles was reading an unwelcoming undertone inside them.

"You seem to value life, young sir," Eric said, his face suddenly softening, his voice being that of embracing. Knuckles didn't nod nor even move from his still position. His soul was shuddering. "If it's so, then I beg you to return and forget all of this." The echidna's jaw nearly became unhinged. "You go on and live your life and embrace the comfort and freedom that you have saved others."

His mouth tightened in protest. "But it's not over with for me."

"It is," Eric gently forced back, "you need to forget about what you did, what you've said to me, and what you've delivered." A breath passed between the both of them. "And you need to forget about this lone echidna that Lemeans was talking about. The leopard was old, and quite possibly in his time in captivity he was going senile."

Knuckles eyes widen from disbelief of what he was hearing. "How can you say that? Look what he's done."

A shake of the ferret's head. "I can, because I know what has to be protected. I'm protecting life in telling _you_ to forget and move on with your life." Knuckles could see himself in the ferret's eyes almost wanting to shout his displeasure. "You need to forget about all of this and live your life."

"I can't forget this!"

"Maybe not of the people_ you've_ brought here, but I need you to forget about me, the message, Lemeans...let what I said about him become reason and let the message be blank." He inched closer to Knuckles' muzzle. "You could jeopardize a lot more lives than you know if you don't forget."

It left him blank, and the slit in his open mouth showed that it had. Just before his thoughts got organized, just before more questions came to him that he would keep to himself, Eric placed his hand on his shoulder and like a light wind pushing a windmill blade, had turned him around, his face warming in the setting orange sun, his eyes finding familiar faces amongst the crowd. Faces that pulled him back from somewhere his heart suddenly felt relieved from leaving. And a slight push at his back began his journey back to fortunate friends.

The steps he took came sluggish and stiff, but by a few meters Knuckles was well at full speed from what his hanging soul would allow. But as he began to make out Sonic's face coming towards him, two days past had rushed into his mind...with it a face.

"Sir," he said, peering over where his biceps met his shoulder blade with one eye. The ferret was still watching him, standing now...still making sure he was on his way. "Justin." The ferret rose his head bowing in waiting. "He saved me and my friends from getting discovered." Knuckles stopped himself to swallow down his longing feelings. "He saved us with his life...he was a hero to us."

The ferret's lips were pulled apart. He stood solidly still until a lone escaped from his head. From which Knuckles returned his head straight forward and with that he continued on.

It seemed like a mile had passed when Sonic's blue fur had finally beat back the orange overbearing setting sun. But the thoughts that passed his mind could've rounded the world a dozen times. Why did he want him to forget? Who's lives where he saving? _"Why all of this?"_

"Yo, Rad?" Sonic's _merry_ voice lifted his head some.

"What's been happenin'?" the echidna merely echoed his reply.

The hedgehog-of-subdued speed stopped in front of Knuckles before shifting to his right side. "Well, sort of the same-oh-same-oh." The Guardian could see Sonic looking off to the sunset, realizing he was watching Hershey talking with a tall ram dressed in something that looked like a tie-less suit covered with a robe. "Hershey's got Amadeus' head straight, so the heat's off us. She's jaw-jabbing to the mayor of Edgewood right now."

"About what?" Knuckles asked, still looking forward.

"Again, same-oh-same-oh; congratulating the heros, we're taking a few sick people back with us because they don't have the top notch doc we do–" He eyed Knuckles when the Guardian snorted. "–and we're juicing real soon with your new echidna friend now as the new superstar of this code thingy we were sent here for in the first place." Glancing at Knux again, he loosened his face and asked, "So what were you talking to that dude about?"

The echidna let out a tensioned sigh. "Remember that guy yesterday that was killed...the one I had to hold you down so you wouldn't blow our cover just to issue some captial-bot-punishment?"

Sonic nodded, his voice lacking its known coolness. "Yeah?"

A shaking head, eyes drifting to the grassy ground. "I just told his father."

The wind floated the silence.

"Man..." Sonic crossed his arms. "How'd ya know it was him."

Knuckles lips dripped his reply. "Call it a hunch."

He felt Sonic's hand rest upon his shoulder. "Dude, what's with you? Even doing what you did, you still come back a little happier. Shoot Red, we did what we've been doing since we were really kids...heck, since we had started fighting, and then after we jabbed elbows and made up."

And Knuckles remembered those fun, growing and dangerous times well. He actually missed them. Was this how Aleutian felt; why his soul was lost and battered?

"I don't know, Sonic. Maybe I just want to go home."

"Ah, enough cake for one day, eh, Knux?" Sonic chided.

Knuckles shrug, giving his best smirk. "Hey, I said I wanted a piece...can you let me endure the indigestion?"

A chuckle sprouted from Sonic. "Yeah, take all you want."

And again there was silence between them for a good while.

"Hey, Sonic," Knuckles said in a steady tone. The blue blur looked to him, arms still crossed. "Thanks for backing me up back there with Amadeus."

He couldn't believe Sonic snorted as he rolled his head away from him. "Yep, there is definitely something wrong with you. When have you ever thank _moi_ for backing you up?"

Eyes rolling, he returned, "Don't get used to it."

A jab straight at his arm. "See, there's the _Chuckles _I remember."

Before Knuckles could eye him jeeringly, Sonic had already stepped away with a bounce under his feet. "Come on, Rad. We need to go home and let St. John sort this mess out."

Knuckles sighed before he followed Sonic off into the sunset. And he smiled. It all actually felt that everything was coming to a peaceful close.

"_Home...Julie."_

"–ten–eleven–twelve–thirteen–fourteen–"

Of all the colorful things out in the woods, and far enough away from Knothole City and anyone, Marian had never understood why her mother had said daises were nothing but a weed to her _flower_ garden. She may be six, but a weed was a weed and a flower was a flower.

So here she was, a thoughtful young ground squirrel, sitting with crossed legs in an open small meadow surrounded by the Great Forest's tallest residence: walnuts, maples, and in front of her a good shuttle run and back, an pine, its truck etched with deep fishers in the bark, large enough that she'd need a grown up to help with the rest of her class to circle it while holding hands, picking daises for her mom's cooking dinner. The setting sun behind her was at the time she'd always loved, low enough to still brightly illuminate the world for her to play in, but far enough down to the horizon, almost shadowed by it, to were school had become a mere forethought until night came, when she'd be snuggled into bed and reminded by a kiss on her brow from mom that school was just a wink away. Her dress was basking in it's purple top and yellow knee length skirt in the falling sun. Even her purple slippers were gleaming between the grass stains.

"–sixteen–eighteen–nineteen, Isabel! I counted nineteen, Isabel!" she giggled proudly to a dear companion only she could see...and only she could tell her truest of feelings to without getting disapproving faces.

"Let's see," she thoughtful quizzed herself, companion in good company, the unicorn's nuzzle and white horn bowing down to help Marian examine her collection, "we have, one, two...um–four, five, six, eight...er, seven, nine, ten, eleven daisies, Isabel. I think we need two more to make a dozen."

A bird chirped over head and the gentle wind swayed the branches further above her, creating dancing shadows all around her. And somewhere in this small clutter of Aurora's ensemble, Isabel agreed with her.

"Well, which ones should we get?" she asked, looking up at her flying and riding traveler to places only _they_ knew where to go and find. "Okay," she replied, hearing the answer lightly whispered in her pointed ear, "the one in front of me. But we better not count the peddles," she insisted in a cautioning tone, "Mom should be calling for us shortly for dinner, and we want to surprise her that I got a dozen flowers for her."

The white peddled daisy stood up next to her right thigh, its green stem pushing its yellow circle up to great her. Plucking was simple like all the others had been. She took it up to her smiling face and examined every pollen pud she could see with her green eyes, admiring beauty though she was so young to comprehend its true nature. When she gathered it was the best flower she's collect so far, she nestled further with a smile, and drifted over to her cluttered collection to her left.

"Okay, one more Isabel," she giggled helplessly to her friend. And the wind replied to her, Isabel's sought words coming to her, sparking her attention and imagination to look ahead of her; to hear and see their next calling.

It was by far the prettiest and elegant of all the daisies she's picked by herself. To her captive eyes it was its lonesomeness that brought yearning to her mind, calling to her to place it with its friends. One time in school, she had upset a few of her dearest friends, calling them names out of fun rather than spit, and she remembered what all that caused; loneliness, tears...loss of trust. She had felt like this lone daisy swaying in the subtle motion of air by itself in the small grassy opening, the large pine dwarfing behind it. She felt to champion its longing for companionship, to help it find friends because it grew up where no others would.

"I can get it, Isabel. It's not to far for me," she assured her unicorn that had asked if it could retrieve it for her.

The smile on her face had finally subsided to her effort movements to journey to her last daisy. It really wasn't far, but her face was saying otherwise. It had strained some when she had unfolded her legs and tucked them under her, lips broadening into a pensive grin when she started towards its swaying white pedals on her hands and knees. Her dress caught a few times in the juggle of movement but she stopped not even briefly to unfurl her skirt from her knees. Three unicorn like steps and she was closer...her face brightening once more. A bird sang again in a course tone, and Maria herd it flew away overhead. But her eyes never deviated from her new adventure; to free the flower so mom could see what she's saved. A hereon; she and Isabel.

Her hand out, fingers closing for the pinch, and the flower was just a few inches away. Closer her hand drifted towards it...

...And it _moved_. It twitched in front of her. It twitched so suddenly that Marian brought her hand back.

"Isabel, now come on. You shouldn't tease me," she scolded, looking up at the open air in front of her, only seeing the blue sky and puffy clouds that laid just under the heavy branches of the pine tree.

Her smile back, and her attention on the daisy, she again drifted her fingers to it...but only to stop when the flower twitched again, and it was a little more violent than the last twitch. The thought of scolding Isabel again came to her but she stopped from chiding her companion when the daisy began to rock side to side, bouncing around on its stem suddenly, its white pedals flutter forcefully as if they might fly off. Air moved around her, it disturbed her dress and brown hair some, but not as ruthless as the daisy was enduring. If she needed to be a hereon she needed to act before the daisy lost its pedals, she quickly thought. Reaching forward she aimed her thumb and index finger just below the flower's body at the stem. She was almost there–

–The yellow cone of the daisy's center did something Marian had never imagine it could do...even in her most treasured worlds and landscapes. It started to shrink. As her green eyes witnessed this, her limps freezing from the sight, her vision saw the white pedals slowly began to point downwards but not falling off. And just as her fingers started to inch away from this curious scene unfolding in front of her, she gazed on, watching the stem coil slowly like it was becoming a length of string falling to the ground, sinking upon each level of itself until the full body of the pedestal flattened onto its stem and then the grassy floor...and it kept going, the grass around it bending their green, thin stems upon themselves, laying prone into a rectangle.

And the rectangle had collapsed the soft dirt and roots underneath to an inch in depth.

She looked up, eyes searching out things her imagination was trying to grasp. She didn't see anything but the air. Not even a new roving friend came to her vision. Just the air.

Glancing back down at the large rectangle depression, her eyes drifted just off to her left, she felt her face loose its smile. A second rectangular depression, not a foot and a half beside the one that had collapsed her last daisy, soaked into her mind.

"Isabel?"

Her voice was so soft she couldn't hear the tremble in it.

When her widened, puzzled eyes guided her head up, she was met with the blue sky and the patchy fluffy clouds. There was nothing. Only the wind.

But where are the birds. She didn't hear them...she only heard and felt the wind.

"_Isabel_?" came her drifting voice, feeling the wind softly touch her around cheek and temples.

Not a chirp from the birds; not even a whisper from her friend...

Her head jerked over her shoulder...far enough over that a muffled sound of peeling lettuce rang from her. And when a sigh slipped from her lips, her body became limp, coiling over to her right side, sinking down upon her stomach, until she was lying flat, her legs tucked under her, her back flat on the grass as her arms lay beside her...

...her face staring up into the sky...and like the snap she never felt protrude her body, her eyes focused, opened...seeing black.

* * *

I hope my argument with Amadeus' and Knuckles was very heated and struck a lot of chords amongst you. Knowing how teens rebel and knowing Knuckles' character and all he's gone through brought out that scene in a way I never thought I could do. One, Amadeus' being the grown up but this time not the all knowing adult. And two; Knuckles being himself, and being an echidna for one.

In saying that, and asking y'all if I brought the undercovering of Snively to the forefront, but not exposing his intenstions to Knothole expcept their bad, easily and not really rushed, of I did a good job in that end?

And how was the last scene?

If it left a bad taste in your mouth, I will make my confession about how I felt writing it.

Until then, the conclusion...and no aurthor's interruptions when it's done.

Mauser


	39. Whispering Shadows

Welcome back everyone, and mostly to me. This chapter is going up as is with out a single edit. Not something I'm comfortable with, but I can't keep you all waiting.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the main sonic crew, so I respect the rights of their original creator.

Please read and review and don't be gentle; slam me with this one. (Observe what happens when a writer doesn't polish their work) Be happy, this chapter is going up and not the way was planning from the start. It was meant to be a lot longer.

Enjoy

* * *

**Whispering Shadows**

By

Mauser

* * *

"_Can you hear me?"_

Yet in the blackness of his closed vision from the wink twilight of the coming night, Locke's sanctum wasn't intruder. No voices echoed to him, no images came to his inner-sight; only a sigh from his sentient-self stirred after a moment of complete silence.

"_Can you hear me, Aleutian?"_

A pause in continuance, wanting to ask again in the void he trapped his eyes under but instead let the thought slip back into his attuned mind. Was he being too gentle? Did he need to excite his frontal lobe further, or hold what could be a very crushing surg to the receptor at bay? Or was he missing something else entirely.

"_You're asking too much for the lad, Locke."_ came Archimedes voice, who the elder Guardian knew was sitting in on a branch of the large pine tree not more than five feet behind him. Sentry for the life Locke was beginning trying to continue...and alas, guide further. _His_.

He flexed his left shoulder that twisted his forearm, settled his wrist further up on his knee, holding his three digit glove flat, palms up, thumb resting at the base of his pinky. Right the same way.

"_Can you here me, my son?"_

He held his breath to only be deafened by silence.

"_Locke, you're trying to much and too fast."_

Archy's voice sounded reasoning, though Locke felt his old mentor was scolding him. And like a warrior in defeat falling upon himself, Locke opened his eyes to his darkening surroundings, and their brightened inner world with a steady, humble fire at the center of their cores. Where the sun had gone the azure trial of twilight's last blink drifted Locke's eyes to the low horizon for his answer. The hot day was slowly coming to pass, and the mountain top he and his son had settled for after the steep climb together was helping along the cool air.

Yet he could feel warmth...and his senses of it brought his placate face around to the source.

Aleutian's legs were still folded under him. His eyes still shut, hands resting on his knees as his brown jacket was open to expose his crest. He wasn't sitting directly across from Locke, but instead diagonal to his left, letting the light cut his long scar in a shadowy line that stirred something in Locke to crush his heart with more guilt of not being there. Of not succumbing to defeat to his and Aleutian's distant war. One of which only Archimedes knew to be waging...and he the poor messenger.

"_What have I done, Archy?"_ he whispered in his mind. _"Why didn't I see what you meant? Why couldn't I hear the cry for help you spoke of?"_

For a moment, there wasn't even a reply from the wind. But then a sigh lifted Locke's chin, though his eyes were still on his son.

"_Because I didn't speak loudly enough. And we were all worried about another brother. Not just us, but him, Locke,"_ came the fire-ant's slow voice.

Locke's face tightened. _"And what makes you say that?"_

Something flashed through his mind that lead Archy's silence–but went when the fire-ant spoke:

"_You're not ready."_

The image returned, striking Locke harder than what General Kage had tried to do when the half-dingo, half-cyborg beat him for the Master Emerald's location. It was just a fleeting glimpse but it burned in him: he saw a boy, weak in his stance, his bottom torso missing in what Locke could depict as a dark room–shelves he could see with books–a bed behind him, his chest covered in a black shirt, standing bodies in the shadows in front of the boy, looking on as a suffering, orange light earned its name. And the boy held something in his hand, something dark but gleaming, protruding out at both points of his fist, hovering down at his thigh. And Locke winced just as fast as the flash came and went he saw the glistening of blood oozing out of a fresh wound across his face that was bearing down on the occupants in the room–

He shut his eyes, clearing the image with a fierce shake of his head...only before it left, seeing tears tracing the boys face. Where did the image come from? He thought hard for a split second, retracing his own questions, and stopping at Archimedes. It had to come from him. Just the low level of the reflection earned the conclusion. But why did it come from his old Mentor.

"_Tell me what went on two years ago?" _he demanded in a horse whisper. _"I'd sent you to get him, but you returned with him missing. What went on that you held silence for?"_

But before Archy's voice came with a reply, a stern, softer voice came in his stead that brought a contrast of blue and green to Locke's eyes. _"Tell me, Locke the Liar, does thou selective mute insect still hold his tongue?"_

The fire-ant's voice rang through, widening his eyes to his son. _"He's not ready."_

"_Then how will I find his past without being intrusive to him? We know how that went yesterday."_

He could here his former mentor breathe, preparing what Locke knew was a coming plain, but cross voice. _"He just spoke in your head. I think the bloke might take you into his home after seeing Aleutian the way he is now. _

"_It just might be me waiting outside of his den."_

Locke watched on at his son, relaxing his face before letting his known unbridled snuff out and opened his heart and brought forth a smile. "I'm still impressed at how quickly you can put a fire together, son. And by hand too."

Aleutian opened his eyes, holding his body still for a moment before turning his head to his father. "You mean there was an easier way?" he said in a tone Locke couldn't discern whether he was chiding or actually taken aback.

A twitch of his head, like a monk in a temple becoming enlightened. "I could've found the wettest wood, dried it, and had it warming us before you'd even opened one of our meal pouches."

Aleutian broke eye contact with him, drifting his head away while his mouth hung open meekly in frustration. "It's not that how you can do it, dad, but knowing now that I–"

He'd stop and Locke waited, watching him look down to find his thoughts. "Knowing what son?" he asked in helping him.

"I don't know, father." He sighed, letting his shoulders dropped. "I'd learn a lot of what I know out _here_. I mean–" He rose his head and met his father's eyes. "One side of me says, 'if I would've known that back then', but something else in me says...I just...don't know."

Locke gazed on with an affirming smile. "What motivated you, Aleutian?" he asked, almost like gently breathing into the fire. "What made you work to get it right and the first time. What helped you find the better wood?"

A long pause, but Locke could see he knew the answer.

"It..." His voice was low, shallow. "I had a girl that I was trying to keep warm. Trying to get her well, dad."

"Oh?" Locke pressed disarmingly.

But Aleutian didn't have to say he found her sick. He didn't have to say anything at all, for the thoughts, the memories were leaping at Locke like a he'd remember both his boys would when he came home. Aleutian in particular. And how he felt then was how he felt now with the images of his son's past coming to him.

"_Are you all right?"_ he heard his son's higher, shy voice say, watching his arm extending out to body that was shivering, crying, her white dress stained with dirt, ripped from what Locke could see as she'd been running from something. But her head, her red fur head with hair darker in crimson and tangled, turned to expose her tears and her fright. She sucked in air, rolling her body over and trying to scramble away–

"_What did they want, Aleutian?"_

She was sitting in a pool of water, her arms folded on top of her knees, looking toward to shore–and Locke realized she was sitting in the same lake he and Aleutian had taken a swim in two days before. She was trying to wash away something, cleansing her soul.

"_I don't know, Emi-La." _But Locke knew he son was lying. _"I don't know. But we don't have to worry about them anymore."_

She shook her head, bringing her knees closer to her. _"I wish the tribe was here...we could've given them reason not to hurt us."_

"_I don't think that was going to happen, Emi-La. If they wanted reason, they would've given up on the first shot."_

And Locke felt a chill come from the words. One he knew Aleutian didn't like...And that was good.

But then came a bone crushing pain; straight inthe rib cage. Sight became unrecognizable, whirling until more pain came from the right arm side–then the tightness of a left arm being manipulated where joints were meeting the breaking point. Locke was looking through Aleutian's eyes, his sight being pushed towardsa bamboo floor. And lastly, he felt his whole body being weighed down by someone else.

"_Very well, Emi-La. Very Well. Just remind thy Aleutian he needs to be quicker with his lower blocks."_ came a stern voice that flowed like water. _"Okay, that's enough for the day. Alea needs thee in the kitchen, Emi-La–"_ Locke could hear the voice drifting away. _"Aleutian!"_

"_Water! Yes, sensie!" _his son's voice squeezed out from his lungs.

The pressure from his arm had let up, but the body above him moved. Blue eyes and a smiling face invaded his sight. _"You alright?"_

A playful moan escaped him.

Then she came closer to him...and Locke felt her lips against his sons.

Locke's sight eroded back to the darkness when her giggle drifted from his ears. _"You're being intrusive,"_ he said to himself. But was he? Those thoughts, those memories; it was like he was asked to see them. Could it be Aleutian was finally opening up? Was he reflecting? Was he cherishing his memories and not dwelling on them? That was a lesson Locke remembered his son rolling in his mind over and over that afternoon. And one from the voice he couldn't see.

Or maybe he could...like what Archimedes was leading on.

"Thirteen kids?" Locke nearly barked out, but disciplined his voice under a smile.

A simper slowly came across Aleutian's face, lowering his head as if not to let his father see it. "Yeah. He had nine when I met him–" Locke watched him sigh, passing a whimper of shame he felt his son didn't need to let out. He knew how hard it was to let go. "When he met _us_."

But he knew he couldn't come close to know what his son was enduring. Lara-Le was in this world to remind him. Aleutian only had memories.

"_And her,"_ he softly reminded himself with a twinkle of a smile. _"She isn't away from your side, son. Just not there to hold you like we wish."_

"How old is he, son?" Locke asked with a breath of hesitation. "Or is that a secret?"

A shake of the head with a waning smile. "No–no secret. I think he's hitting forty-two, here, with a sword in a few months."

Locke widened his eyes in a pensive surprise. "He's forty? His fur looks younger." He swallowed, trying to recall more from his encounter with him. "That, and he moves like I did at _your _age."

His son looked on at him quizzically. "Huh? How did you find out?" His stare got a little narrower. "Hey, what went on the other day? You didn't fight him, did you?"

A smile and a turn downwards of his head. "Call it–reaction." Shrugging his shoulders like saying what he did was no big deal, Locke began to waver his head some. "He snuck up on me while I was trying to help you...trying find what was wrong with you, son, and...I reacted. Then I felt my arm stop; wrist collapse; and before I knew one thing, I was staring up at those blue and green eyes of his."

Aleutian closed his eyes under a whispering sigh. Locke felt something come over his son that dredged deep into him. It had the notion of fear mixed with something akin to...

"_Friendship?"_ Locke pondered.

"Those eyes, father," Aleutian slowly seeped from his lips, bitting his lower in repose thought, "those eyes still haunt me."

"How come?" Locke returned, leaning forward.

But Aleutian faltered. Shaking his head, he snuffed, trying to push back his memories.

"Son?" Aleutian finally picked his head up, but giving his father a long, emotionless stare. Nonetheless, Locke pressed on: "Son...it wasn't anything he did?"

"No." Rubbing his head, he kept his searching eyes towards the ground. "I went to sleep under a cloudless night and a full moon, about a weeks walk from here." Raising his shoulders he drifted his eyes to his father. "I woke up sometime later–staring up at a quarter moon. And before I could move–even think–the glare of the moon started tracing a head that turned towards me...and there they were: one blue eye, followed by one green." Aleutian peered up into the night sky. Clouds were encroaching under the stars from the east, yet the last quarter moon was visible, even with the dying twilight at his back. "Almost a night like this."

"Even with rain afoot?" Locke quizzed winsomely.

Dropping his head towards the fire, Aleutian sighed, trying for a smile but failing. "No...but I remember the autumn cold. Even the coolness of tonight up here makes me shiver."

"Why you've got your jacket on?"

He rose his cheek under a knowing smirk. "Yeah...a mobian in the summer...with a jacket on."

Locke gave a sly grin. "Hate to see how you would fare in the Ice Cap Zone back on the Island."

Aleutian didn't answer; only smiling like the jab didn't have any prudence with him. Instead he tapped the green stripe of his shoe.

Swallowing, Locke let his voice come out like a lite wind. "Lopper said something about..." He froze when his son's eyes met his. "...said that you two would have your talk. What did he mean?" Silence from the two of them. "He didn't seem pleased about having it."

A gaze Locke was sure he would remember enveloped his son's face that, for only the second he had witnessed it, left to the weakening fire. A gaze Locke could only surmise as his son realizing why the lop-eared rabbit had come to his house on the bluff in the first place. And as the fire breathed, so too did Aleutian. Steadily. Deliberate.

"Things, dad," he answered for the moment. "The past, me...Emi-La...everything."

Locke straightened his back. "Were you going to listen?" he asked rather sternly.

He'd tucked his inner bottom lip in. He held his stare at the fire, but was possibly giving it to himself "Before last week...probably not," he said in a straight voice, lost in his thoughts. "But with Mathias...meeting my brother..." Locke leaned forward when Aleutian's voice began to lose its bearings, only stopping when he'd breathed in his anguish. "Mom."

Lara-Le's gentle face came to Locke just as fast as Aleutian's call to her–and he was sure Aleutian had called for her, and not reflecting her. He could see her head spines, each woven in white silk bands that enclosed the red fur, dancing when she would move about in the kitchen, when she had Knuckles nestled in her arms, wandering in his nursery to keep him calm. When Aleutian was born...carrying his small-self around tightly, never letting her sight leave him...

"I said some–" Locke's lush memories left him without their pardons when his son stopped his voice. He didn't say anything to help him along. But conveyed with his eyes to aide him. "I said some really hurtful things to mom, dad. Things I'm not really sure that they had come from _me_."

"Like what?" Locke asked, making his voice gently touch his son's shoulder.

A tuck of his lips. A moment in time Locke was happy to be sharing in his son's thoughts. "She'd said that my scars...my severed lock could be mended. Fixed." Letting silence carry his sympathy, Locke only nodded. "I–I said I wanted them...that I had my reasons for keeping them." Aleutian swallowed the tightness of his throat, turning his neck away under a phantom pain.. "I hurt her, dad. She hasn't seen me in sixteen years, and I turn around and hurt her by throwing away the best gift I think I could get right now."

"You were not you," Locke reasoned with a steady tone.

Tears began to glimmer from his eyes, rolling down his cheeks. "And _you_ would know?"

A narrowed right eye, yet face still reposed. "I knew the moment you let yourself known in the chamber that from what Archimedes and Athair told me of you–my son was still missing."

He lean forward, muster his emotions to hold themselves in his heart. "It took Lara to come find you."

"_And you found him, Locke, the way he was from the day I had left him. You just didn't see the blood,"_ came Archy's whisper voice like an interlude to his psyche.

The sight he held now strengthen him; of his son living...breathing. Finding himself.

"Can you fix all of this?" came Aleutian's distant, longing voice. "From what mom said?"

Locke sighed faintly. His answer was instant, but he knew the way to cleaning up his son's blemishes meant asking someone who he despised...and she likewise.

"Yes...to a point, I'm afraid." Aleutian looked on unmoved. "From how Angel Island is currently, it will take a while. But yes, Aleutian...we can at least clean them up."

Shaking his head, Locke changed the subject. "You said you were going to help Elias and Knothole?"

"Yeah," Aleutian began under a fortitude gruff. "I at least want to spend a week with them. See how they are doing things; teach them a few things. Get to know my brother."

Locke's brow rose. "I could really use you both, you know?"

Shaking his head, Aleutian frowned. "I'm not going to force him, dad."

"I'm not asking you to do that–"

"But it's what you would like. And I'm not going to manipulate him."

Locke took in a breath, calming himself, trying not to let the war that split him and Aleutian from each other spark again. "I can't fight Robotnick and the Dingoes alone. Especially when the Legion is at war with itself." He sighed inwardly. "I need you and your brother...badly."

A furrowed brow. "And throw me to them with what I _now_ know. I'm no use, dad."

"But you're training well," Locke countered, almost a little to forcefully.

But Aleutian's shaking head showed no quarter to his wisdom. "I'm not ready for this totally, dad. I still feel weak. And I still yearn for her so much that it might be dangerous."

It was with his last sentence that Locke was beginning grasp how much of a journey he had yet to travel. And the grimace from Aleutian that could've been seen from Aurora Herself struck the first seed of doubt into his heart. He had to qual it. He had to find a way to ease the pain. But he had to find a out what fully triggered it–

"_Tell me, Locke the Liar, does thou selective mute insect still hold his tongue?"_

Lopper's voice seemed like a never ending echo in his head. Yet, the mystery behind it and those eyes fostered the truth that lay hidden to him after all these years. Truth that he'd never taken the time to search for. Of all the lessons he had told Knuckles, and before him his brother, to let the light of truth find your way, Locke had chosen to be in the dark, only to want the torch now after the darkness had whisked everything important to him away. And now...and now he wanted to collapse in front of his eldest son...to beg for the truth to know what damage has been done.

"_Let the light of truth guide you,"_ he said to himself.

"_And I have, mate,"_ said Archimedes.

Locke thought to turn and face his old mentor but instead he held his fond gaze at his son. _"You taught me that, old friend. I remember that was your first lesson to me...when–"_

"_When I'd help you dry your tears after _your_ father leapt into the Forbidden Zone. Lad, I'm forever your teacher...reminding you that past lessons will always follow you. If you want to the truth, Locke; follow your heart. Follow your son."_

And he knew what Archimedes meant.

"How far is Lopper's home from here?"

Aleutian's face gawked at the question. "Say what?"

A smile consumed Locke. "How far is Lopper's home?...I'm serious."

"Maybe–a week and a half from here," Aleutian replied, closing his eyes as if to further his grasp at what his father was asking.

A slight frown. "Unfortunately I don't have that long." Locke cast an eye to his and Aleutians back-packs, seeing in his head the object of his wishes. "But I can teach you how to warp-ring to there."

Nodding, Aleutian gave a smile that was almost unexpected. "Are you sure about this?"

"Why? I'm not going to ambushed and assaulted by all his children?" came Locke's cautious remark.

"No." Aleutian tightened a fist in apprehensiveness from something Locke was asking if it was in sympathy to is well-being. "But he's going to teach you somethings...and you're not going to be _just_ a guest at his house."

"How so?" came the eldest Guardian's quick response, answering inwardly part of his question just by his aimed goals with asking Lopper about Aleutian.

But Aleutian only nodded at him, setting his mind to what his father desired. "Just watch out for his floor when we get there."

Digging his chin, Locke gave a quizzical nod. "Why?"

"The floor sings, dad," Aleutian replied, holding a pause for a moment. His father still had a puzzled expression. "His house has something called a nightingale floor."

The elder echidna's face melted to bewilderment. "He has a what?" broke in with a gapping jaw. "I've only read about them...but didn't think anyone would put it in their house. It must drive his family nuts?"

Aleutian lowered his voice under a warming stare. "Not if you can walk across it without making it creak." He had his father's full attention. "I learned to walk on his floor in three days without making a sound. His children and adopted children can run across it and not make it chirp."

"I can imagine their huff-beats," Locke observed eagerly.

"Yeah, but if Lopper hears one squeak;" Aleutian took his right hand, hoovered it behind his head and slammed it at his skull with a _thwack_– "Guess who's doing sit-ups on it...and not making it sing. All the while little Hannah is hitting the back of my head for my counts."

"You didn't do them fast I take it?" Locke grinned, eating the sight coming to him up. He was almost challenged to make Lopper's floor sing just to try the sit-ups.

"I wish I could've...and so did Emi-La. But that was the other side of the sit-ups; the slower we did them to keep the floor silent, the more our muscles burned." A grunt came with a lite grimace. "And having a tail doesn't help with the sit-ups–but–" Locke could see the thoughts rolling in Aleutians head. Whatever they were, it firmed his expression. "But it does help walking across it."

"Distributing your weight?" Locke inquired gently.

Aleutian nodded. "Yeah. I'll teach you that...that is if you want to do this tomorrow?"

The question was beyond recounting. "Yes, son. I want to meet him."

And Aleutian sensed why. And it was all fair. "Okay, want to try this again?" he asked with a wanting, expressionless face.

"It's up to you," Locke replied, holding out his three digit gloved hand.

A succession of nods. "Yeah, just tell me what I'm doing wrong."

"Just open your mind. And make it clear. Meditate for the start. Then search for me."

Aleutian bowed his head and inhaled deeply before closing his eyes. Watching him rest his wrist on his knees while focusing on a shallow, rhythmic draw of air, Locke closed his blue eyes to coming night, and glowing fire, and began his concentration.

A shallow breath. Then a deep exhale, clearing out his mind and encasing his sight with pure darkness. Tightening his hands at his fingers he searched for his son across the blanket void. To one extent it was easy to look for him; just one being not really directly across from him, but at least not buried in a dense crowd. Not like how it was looking for Lara-Le and her Wynn and little Kneecaps. But yet, it was almost that hard. Feeling his pupils track under his eyelids, Locke set-out from his mind like a blind man in space, feeling for warmth to seek shelter with, and letting its touch connect to him. He'd practice this enough to do it to the point of not having to close his eyes.

But as the slight chill he was becoming to that existed deep in his son latched onto him, it was here that Locke had to ebb his way into to become one with his son. He dove deeper, searching out feelings, looking for something that could lead him further into Aleutian's mind. Something he could communicate with, and hope his son could touch the same feeling and ride the wave-length. But there was nothing...

The cold was strengthening. It stirred further. It was slithering in and around Locke's mind, covering its origins with a different scent. But he could feel the being that was being surrounded by this inexorably...animus notion.

His eyes had stopped moving in his sockets. Like starring at something alien to him and attempting to figure out what his sight was beholding. This dark notion–it barked at him, mauling at his skull. Had he awoken something inside Aleutian? Was this a true feeling from him, striding closer to his soul; hunting him? _Yes_...it _was_ hunting him. And it was doing so in known territory Locke began to feel lost in.

Voices mumbled at him...yet not directly. It was almost like he was in a heated conversation with him stuck in the middle of it–

A feeling of helplessness wafted at his face that he latched on to with a crushing grip, feeling its pull drag him to a moment of sorrow...then anger...then revenge.

And the cold kept coming, stalking...bringing with it something Locke remembered by touch when it'd touched him, and felt when it'd breathed on him.

Killer instinct. And it was hunting _them_.

_Snap!_

The break of a twig sprang his eyes open, darting his head the space his son was sitting:

"Aleut–"

He was gone. Where his sight had last seen his son was gazing upon fallen, rotting leaves. His head turned frantically, looking, shooting his eyes in all directions, but the glow of the fire and the fading blue of the horizon turned up nothing.

But the cold was coming closer!

He was about to stand up when Archimedes voice slammed into his brain. _"Don't move a muscle Locke! Stay where you are!"_

"_Where's my–"_

An object moved straight ahead of him, shutting his mind to fixate his eyes on what the glow of the fire was beginning to trace; where the void had closed produced a swollen, toned body; at the center flickered white; then black wrapped around it, but dark enough to be silhouetted in the trees; then what only his eyes etch became a head, a mouth with exposed tan skin surrounded by the same sea of black. The white became the bunched fur of a chest wall. The head grow outwards, showing two points which stopped to become ears; but three growths continued like Neptune's triton, tracing a crimson streak up each spine...

...And in the lone white socket above a gapping mouth...hard red eyes.

A jutting red arm speared through and up between the black hedgehog's right arm and chest, hooking over his shoulder blade, spinning his head in reaction but just doing that before the back his left knee was kicked through and his body collapsing under Aleutians full body weight, pinning the hedgehog flat on his side, and his _borrowed_ arm hyper-extended at the elbow against Aleutian's Guardian crest.

"Coming back for round two, Shadow!?" Locke heard his son breath acidly down Shadow's neck–and from what he couldn't see, Aleutian hooking a claw from his right glove under the hedgehog's throat . "Heard you coming a mile away."

Locke jumped to his boots, olive drab tribal robe following him to catch Shadow trying to struggle to get his smashed left hand free. The hedgehog's white glove began to glow green.

"Tell me, Shadow," Locke announced, holding up his right palm out with his three digit fingers in an stabbing spread. "Does that wonderful power run through your _whole_ body."

The hedgehog grunted in pain, closing his eyes briefly before snapping them open to glare at the beared echidna. His hand stopped glowing. But his chaos powers, Locke knew, was vibrating every muscle fiber in his body by his own wielding.

"What are you doing here?" Aleutian drove in, along with his knee into the hedgehog's side.

Locke saw Shadow's eyes dart to Aleutian, and sensed a coming assault. Clawing his hand, he concentrated further. The hedgehog recoiled, arching his back right into Aleutian's thigh. "Better answer now, or that sentient being isn't going to be here much longer," he said very cooly.

A heavy grunt strained from his lips. "Funny," came Shadow's corroding voice, "I was going to ask you the same thing. Why are you here? You're risking danger to yourselves."

"What do you mean 'ourselves?'" Aleutian shot back, nudging his lone spiked knuckle deeper at Shadow's coratic-artery.

The black hedgehog swayed his red eyes to the baring echidna on top of him, letting the air between them slip in his nostrils. "If you don't want any Eggpawns finding us as quickly as I did, I suggest to put the fire out." Both echidna's held a fleeting vacant stare at him. "There's a small compound not even a half mile down the hill," he went on, feeling the strain his voice from the labor of his breathing, "if you don't put out that fire, Espio is a good as dead when they come to investigate here."

Aleutian darted his eyes to his father before shooting his terror filled face towards the dancing fire. "Dad!" He jumped up from Shadow.

But before a step was made, Locke extended his left arm straight out his side, opened his palm, and with driving eyes, summoned the air to become wind, concentrating it like an upper-level jet stream straight at the glowing hot ambers. The bright orange flames bent over itself like grass in field might in a large storm, snuffing out in just a few steps that it took for Aleutian to sprint to, kicking the chard logs, making a fast attempt to disperse the smoke.

Locke turned to Shadow, slowly watching the hedgehog climbing to his white and red trimmed shoes. "What's going on, Shadow? Where's Espio?"

From the slight glare Shadow gave him, Locke knew their last encounter with each other–one the Guardian was truly hopping had went well for the sake of his grandfathers–still stirred like it all happened yesterday.

"He's toward the bottom of the hill, watching the compound while I came to see what the light was all about," Shadow answered after a simmering pause.

Aleutian stepped forward, but relaxing his posture. "Is Espio alone?"

"No...that stupid, insisting girl, Rouge, is with him."

"Who?" the scarred echidna nearly stammered, eyes bulging.

Turning his head toward the east, Shadow looked on before speaking. "Rouge. She volunteered herself just for the fun of it."

Locke gave out a weak chuckle. "Yeah, that sounds like her."

Shaking his head, perhaps in disgust, Shadow returned his eyes to the bladed-off echidnas. "I need to get back down there before something stupid happens."

"_So he's not up here to kill us,"_ Locke concluded in his mind.

"You haven't answered us. What's going on?" Aleutian said, giving his voice more of an edge.

The question just didn't rolled in his head, but Locke saw it as a riddle weather the hedgehog was even going to answer. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise him if Shadow would just walk away in pure silence.

But he was surprised at his calm voice when he _did_ answer:

"Commander St. John sent me here to find this compound. He's looking for a cipher of some sort."

"Then why Espio?" Locke interjected.

An uncaring shrug of his shoulders. "Explosives–computers."

"Then why you?" Aleutian barged in. "Not something I'd expect you doing for St. John."

A heavy, drawn stare between the three of them.

"I have my reason this time," Shadow bleed in through a molten voice. "And only this time."

Locke stepped closer to the hedgehog, bringing his beared face further into the dim moon light. "All said and done, Shadow, but me knowing Geoffrey through my son, Knuckles..." he paused to let a narrow eye pass between him and the ultimate life form, "and knowing who you are, the good commander wouldn't ask for your help unless he really needed it." He placed his right foot out, spreading his gait shoulder width apart. "What's so important about this cipher?"

Locke felt a ruse pass openly through Shadow's feelings. When the hedgehog disingenuously looked away, he was only confronted by Aleutian sliding closer to him. From Locke's eyes, he was seeing something trying to connect between Shadow and his son, though both of their looks could place good money on a second fight. But shadow wasn't wanting to talk with the elder echidna. And Locke knew absolutely why.

Shadow's throat closed in a swallow, but his tone was as steady as a well plained board. "It involves something about _chameleon._." A slow turn of his head down the toward the way he came. "It was what got Espio to come along. I was just sent to help find the place and give a little pay-back." A held silence passed him, his eyes looking as if he was searching his soul to come to grips with something. Then he turned to Aleutian, the hedgehog's white chest almost radiating his face. "And your _brother_, Sonic and an Antoine is missing, possibly, because of this."

Darkness had enveloped her cloak around the three standing mobians. It seemed as if the stars held the only light, saved the last play of the silvery moon. Yet Locke could see both his son's and Shadow's face almost perfectly; both trying to decipher each other between their own open books while Locke saw hardly any resemblance of contrasting verbiage. The sight of Aleutian matching the black hedgehog's indifferent, challenging visage twisted his insides, contriving a sense of grandeur that actually hurt to witness and feel. He'd experienced this before; seen it. He knew what Knuckles had endured to achieve the same look, and even then it gouged into him. Locke watched over his youngest son while he cried, fought and then fell in love. He watched him know when to stand for injustice and to protect everything he cared for.

And yet when Aleutian gave the same look, beset with subdued aggression, Locke wanted to shout his frustrations and rage to Aurora for _not _knowing how his eldest son achieved this.

The shroud of silence Locke was wanting to linger broke with Aleutian's drumming voice:

"What about my brother?"

Locke's eyes darted in their sockets to Aleutian. He was believing the hedgehog!

"Sally and Geoffrey had sent him out to scout out a camp or something. They have them chasing a different cipher that they already have."

Aleutian stepped further to Shadow. "And your _pay-back_."

A square stare to the echidna; neither mobain's eyes flinching. "A debt you wouldn't understand," Shadow answered, his tone laced with acid.

Aleutian looked to the stars for a moment. His face kept its firm stare, bring it down with a sigh and straight to his father. Neither said a word; Aleutians mind was free from any images as well.

"It's just three of you?" asked the scarred echidna, rotating his head toward Shadow.

Shadow nodded his chin. "And a few pounds of explosive."

What came next had Locke's face turning to his son to express his wide surprise and gleam of astonishment. He watched as Aleutian broke his stare from Shadow and stepped over to his pack and pick it up. Without so much as breaking his determined filled stride back to the Ultimate Life Form, he said as soon as he was more than three feet away from him:

"Lead the way."

If Shadow could see himself looking on at Aleutian, he'd seen a kaleidoscope of bewilderment, an unhinged jaw, and something resembling intrusion. "Are you serious?"

Aleutian dipped his chin before looking to his father.

The hedgehog held his gaze at the younger Guardian before turning his head towards Locke. "You all up to this?"

A narrowed eye to his son before thinking of his other. "Espio is Knuckles' friend. If he's done there, he could use our help."

Shadow tightened his fist, ebbing an affirming stare on his face. "Yeah, he's down there keeping watch with Rouge."

And the hedgehog turned away, stepping lightly with his white shoes down a path he'd made with his red eyes.

Just before Aleutian set-off behind him, Locke was attempting to get to him when a _poof_ from his shoulder made him stop in his tracks. Fours surrounded the tiny body of Archimedes.

"You sure about this, mate?" the fire-ant asked very worried.

"Stay with him, Archy," Locke answered under a cloaked voice. "Guide him like you did Knuckles, no matter the difference between you two. Something has sparked a glow in him, and I don't know what it is except possibly hearing about his brother."

He took a step but stopped and quietly turned his head straight to his old mentor. "And don't you two use me as bait again," he lightly scolded with a mirthful smile.

Locke caught Archy's winsome grin as he continued his walk, grabbing his own pack on the way down the incline while slowing staying behind his son. For the second that it took for his voice to cease in his head, he nearly wanting to halt once more from the sight that laid ahead of him. It wasn't of seeing trees or Shadow's quills disappearing in the darkness beyond the woods...but of Aleutian. His son's back was slightly bent, but posed to strike with the charging griffin on his jacket ready to charge with him. His hands were balled in relaxed fists. It was though that what Locke heard that made him want to stop and look on at his son, distant until now for over sixteen years, and feeling further apart than how far he'd thought he'd come to known him. Aleutian was waving his tail side to side with every gently placed step he took under his new shoes...bring only silence that Locke heard. The leaves didn't rustle under Aleutian, but they did under him, no matter how hard he tried. No snaps from fallen twigs. No thumps on the soil. Locke could see what was transposing. His son was finding his way back with each quiet step.

* * *

"This is not happening."

The single viewing screen that wrapped around his eyes like a well tailored glove swept left across the fence line for the countless time. Espio stopped as soon as his pupils focused once more on the square concrete shed to the east of the main building. Possibly a storage hold–if not a holding block–from the main structure to the west. It was large enough, guessing it at about sixty square feet in size with hardly any funnels or protruding pipes from the bare roof. He snuffed the air, raising his stomach that laid atop the grassy ground, watching the whole compound forty up from the valley nestled behind a fallen tree trunk, and rotated his elbows, pressing his hands further to keep a tight seal of the binocular to his face, tracing a lone walkway straight-lining to the larger facility he was still figuring out he was going to level with only _four_ satchel chargers. There was no way Knotholes satellites missed this place. Compared to the infant offspring to the right, the larger rectangular building took up most of the fenced in grounds, spreading close to sixty-sixty-five meters to the north and perhaps a hundred to a hundred and half meters wide, sprouting an antenna farm in an arrangement that was more akin to a crop of weeds, mixed with what few ventilation shafts and snakes he could see. Yet, standing atop of the amazingly single story building–and what this place so out of place–was a large satellite dish with a fifty, possibly sixty foot radius, sitting at the edge of the west wall.

And how could he not miss the Eggpawns. Five in all; two patrolling the fence line, two on the large building, and one standing by what he could make out as the door to the small structure.

"This isn't happening."

"What's not happening, Espee?"

Espio's right hand was three inches from the source of the low, disciplined voice that startled him. When his pupils had dilated just in time to make out the familiar face that he didn't hear, nor feel land beside him, he nearly jumped out of his purple skin when he made out a smiling, dark crimson echidna. "Knuckles!?" he sniped under a hoarse whisper, yet his best friend's voice sounded a little deeper, even from his soft tone, and possessing a degree more of maturity. "Wh–what are you doing–"

He was cut off when the echidna shook his head, raveling his head spines atop his shoulders and _jacket_...? _"Knuckles never wore a jacket?"_

"Wrong brother, Espio."

The chameleon stammered, gawking when the echidna turned his head further to reveal the long scar running down his right cheek. "Al–Aleutian!?"

The echidna nodded under a knowing smile.

Then a deeper voice floated down to him. "Hey, Espio? How's the rest of the chaotix?"

Straining his head, and his mouth open further, across his shoulder to see the white beard of Locke kneeling behind him, off to his left side. Archimedes was clinging to his right dread-lock, smiling down. "What–"he stopped himself just to look away for a second before looking back over his shoulder. "What's going on? What are you all doing here?" Scanning his surroundings for anymore surprises he then asked, "Where's Shadow?"

"Right here," came the reposed voice standing to his left. "Anything new?"

Swallowing, the chameleon tilted his head at the cove between the sprouting grass and the log, preparing for any assault from Shadow, or even the two echidnas: one guardian, one probably still mad at him from peering over his shoulder just a week ago. "Yeah, you might say that."

Locke must've overlooked his distress; his voice keeping attuned to discipline. "How many?"

Returning the binoculars over his horn and to his eyes he replied in a faint monotone, "Five outside. Not too sure about inside."

A pause gripped the four mobians. All eyes were staring directly ahead at the subtle lighted compound on the corners.

Aleutian drifted his head over to his father. "This is new...very new."

"What makes you come to this conclusion?" Shadow remarked snidely, though his voice was so plain, even trained ears could've missed the barb. "You haven't even set eyes on this place till now."

But Aleutian heard it very clarion. Yet he still had to breath to calm himself. "This wasn't here six years ago." Twisting to Espio, he kept an even face to him. "May I?" he asked, offering an open hand to him.

Twitching his cheek as if the request was very trite to even ask, the chameleon handed the lying echidna the binoculars. "Be my guest."

Espio moved his wrist kinetically at the joint, imitating the binoculars like a tachometer if it was plugged into a certain blue-cobalt friend of his. When Aleutian took the set of eyes, he folded his arms underneath him and hid his face from his disgrace. Least anyone knows it yet. For the moment that passed he was certain Locke would pry away his thoughts and raise the alarm. He'd seen his dear friend Knuckles go through the same ordeal. But for the purple skinned chameleon, it was only a matter of waiting to discover if Shadow would pound him in first or if Aleutian actually had feelings and do him in first. _"This is not happening."_

"Five bots," Aleutian whispered, mostly to himself.

"Yeah; four on the grounds, one stationary," Espio added.

"And three with blaster arms, two with swords." A breath or two passed from Aleutian. "Our stationary one is going to be the ringer in the bunch. Bet he can weld flies to the wall with that thing."

Shadow's voice intruded over the two. "Try all three." He caught Aleutian's eye towards him. "They're all manufactured so they get the same programing."

Espio watched the younger echidna from the corner of his eye brush off Shadow's observation and went back to looking through the binoculars. "Shadow says y'all have explosives?"

A nod. "Possibly not enough."

Aleutian wavered his head under a meek frown. "Nah. This more to this place. The walls keep going down through the foundation."

"How do you know _all this_?" Espio quickly shot.

Turning his head, Aleutian saw that not only was the chameleon conveying the question through his face, but Shadow was doing likewise. Shrugging his shoulders, he peered back into the binoculars down the hill. "I've had practice."

Espio couldn't find anything to either question him, or even let a snide comment slip through him. Sonic might've but not him and not now. He was rolling over what Aleutian was possibly leading to. The facility did look a little puny on its surface. In fact that was his initial reaction. Now he had a confirmation on a hunch.

"Hey," Shadow whispered, breaking his train of thought. "Where's Rouge?"

Espio opened his mouth, only to have his voice delay for just a nano-second. "Ah, yeah–"

"Wow, hey," Aleutian said pensively, eyes still glimpsing through the binoculars, "there's a ventilation shaft with the cover off of it."

"Ah, yeah–"

The chameleon only had time to rub the back of his nape just as Shadow spoke:

"Where the explosives?"

Again, he tried to open his mouth but couldn't get a syllable out.

"She's not checking the perimeter, is she?" Aleutian asked a little louder than what the situation could afford. "There's no cover to the east or west of this place."

"Yeah, guys...that's what's not _happening_." Espio felt all eyes burning a hole through his skin. Never had he felt the urge to completely disappear.

Aleutian looked back across to the compound then back to the chameleon. "Well, where'd she go, Espee? Other side of the fence?"

A sulk of his head. "No," he said, like letting a confession drip from his lips, "she's inside the fence...through the ventilation shaft."

Shadow didn't let silence have a chance. "What!? You were supposed to watch over her!"

Aleutian fell in right on top of the hedgehog. "You let her go in there by herself! She can screw this whole thing up!"

"I know guys," Espio said defensively, still keeping his head down.

"And where the explosives?" Shadow nearly shrilled. Espio–and for that matter, Locke–had never heard Shadow's voice go that high before.

"She _liberated_ them from me."

Aleutian's eye bulged. "_Liberated_?"

"Not _my_ words!?" Espio snapped back, along with his head.

A fist landed on his left shoulder, sending a pain to dart his head over. Shadow was winning the beat-the-chameleon-down-free-for-all with ever hard glare–red eyes at their fullest. "She was a girl! How can I trust you if you can't handle a simple, dumb girl."

Opening his mouth, feeling his eye brows rising to full height, he muttered, "So me and Sonic have a hard time with holding down a girl."

"Yeah, but this one took everything!" Aleutian drove in with a sneering whisper. "Man, if your horn wasn't part of your numb-skull, she'd taken that too!"

And speaking of which, Shadow grabbed it and yanked Espio's head over to meet his scathing face. "Does she know what else we're here for?"

A gulping quiver. "Maybe?" he chorused innocently.

At this point the purple chameleon, ranking member of the Chaotix, close friend to Knuckles the Echidna, Guardian of his home, first name Espio, wicked with knives and shruken, and unmatched in explosives–not to mention vanishing without an absolute trace–was beginning to feel more like a SWAT-bot being tagged teamed by Sonic and his dear friend Knuckles when they both made-up and became butt-kicking friends. Come to think of it, a punching bag got more mercy than him at this point.

"If she takes that whole place down–heck, blows the alarm, we're done!" Shadow summed-up everything as best as he could without showing any quarter.

A knock came at the crown of his large head. Turning his head ever as slow as he could manage, he met Aleutian's scar face head on. It bleed acid. "And Knuckles and Sonic are toast if what Shadow says is true." He held a breath. "Why aren't you with them?"

"I wanted to," Espio nearly cried out, smothering his harping voice in the soft grass and dirt below him. "But Commander St. John wanted me here because of my 'hidden talents.'" A heavy intake of air, bring about his own tempered face, darting it between hedgehog and echidna. "So–lay–off–me!"

"Okay, _boys_," came Locke's wedging voice. "This isn't solving anything we need to fix, and fixing it now." When the elder Guardian saw he had all three Mobians' attention–and witnessing Shadow didn't take to well being called a child, being the hedgehog the oldest of the bunch–he pressed further, lower down closer to the grassy floor. "How long ago did she take-off, Espee?"

The chameleon's eyes kept straight forward at the compound. "About ten-fifteen minutes ago."

Shadow's voice was back to normal for him. "Why did she take off in the first place?"

A smirk actually crossed Espio's face. "You were taking to long."

A gruff thunder from the Ultimate Life Form. "I was dealing with some _problems_."

"Oh, like what?"

The grass shuffled from the body to his right. "Me," came Aleutian's early calm voice.

"Us," Locke corrected.

Looking back across he shoulder, Espio found Locke's eyes, though they were staring over him towards the compound. "Yeah, why are you three here anyways?" A long moment passed without either echidna replying. When the chameleon saw Locke bit at his inner lip, he had a feeling what was transpiring before now.

"Catching up, Espee," the elder Guadian said, drifting his right hand up to his beard, gently pulling at the whiskers. "I hope you've been thinking of a way to get in there."

Looking forward, the Chameleon sighed. "Thus far the front door play comes to mind."

Locke's voice resembled a mild thunder. "Out of the question. Not if you want the bots inside reformatting their hard-drives because of _us_."

Right hand falling towards Aleutian, Espio directed his eyes to the binoculars, which the scarred echidna gave him without so much as straying an eye away from their target. "Well," he started, finding his own voice subsiding to calmness, "our only set of wings has left us."

"And we're too low to glide in," Locke observed under a hefty breath. Even he was beginning to get frustrated.

The trees swayed under a cat's-paw wind, gently bringing in silence to the Mobians tucked behind a fallen log. The wet glaze of their eyes flickered with every turn of their hues under the leaving moon, all searching a much needed solution, however, scared to bring about an idea. For a moment, Aleutian had conceded into watching the place blow up, or even better, wait for Rouge and give a huge surprise. If she thought their first meeting was a show, she had yet to see him now armed with what he knew.

Then it sparked him, making him twist his over his left shoulder to his father. "Dad, you have that warp-ring?"

Locke hid his smile, letting a disappointing grimace betray him. "Already thought about it, but those Eggbots would know when we activate one. Especially if they are on high alert. Given the gravity of what Espio and Shadow are hunting for, I'd say a flee be hard pressed to jump through here alive."

"But _you_ can teleport."

Locke had to look away from his son, because the near demand didn't come from him, but from the one being who knew about his capabilities. If Aleutian knew how close Shadow had come to killing his father...things would've been much different...and his son's wish fulfilled in death. But there he was staring at the other walking body that was a living, breathing chaos emerald.

Nodding to the black hedgehog, he bit at his lip and scowled at the weakness he was about to expose. "Unfortunately I've never visited this place before, so I can't see, or picture where I can teleport to."

"But..."

The underlying question in Aleutian's voice was waned, almost misguided not to Locke, but to someone else the elder echidna was sure he was looking at when his son spoke. He felt Aleutian's blue eyes steep inside him, asking, reasoning. Why of all time now, Locke festered deep within himself? Why convey this daunting look to him now like he had just become a menace to them all?

"_Don't hold back on me, son. Ask what's in your heart."_

Aleutian turned away, only hearing his father sigh instead of some sort of protest, or simple plead to continue. He rolled his thoughts in his head, already processing them but driving for commitment. Another flicker of images in his; a squeeze of his hand were pops resinated from his joints; his own inner voice yelling out to him, his face expressionless as if he was taking the inner beating; past voices that were softer–

Her face looking over shoulder at him...

"_You up to this, my Guardian."_

"Aleutian?"

The scarred Guardian strayed his head slightly to Espio, finding his puzzled expression alien as to why he possessed it. "What?"

The chameleon looked behind Aleutian then returned his odd expression. "What are you doing with your tail?"

Looking back himself, he saw, and at last felt, his crimson furred tail twisting into a cork-screw clockwise, then alternating the other direction. Was he committing himself to what had just briefly passed through his mind and almost through his mouth? It was just an inexplicable moment of judgement that two years ago he felt would've just come out in the open, presenting itself for short moment and he taking it for all it proposed it was worth. This had all been recluse to him. His heart didn't have the strength to trust his own judgement, his own voice, leaving it all as just mumbles in a dream and never acting on them. But why...why now? Why then when Knothole was confronted with Eggman's _Dreadbot_?

"_Because she wasn't there with me. Because I had no one...because I wanted no one."_

The confrontation was real, looking at him with enviously, wanting to be taken and pushed to the envelope of his forgotten desires and renew his soul. It had been warming in him since Shadow...he felt it now.

And he was ready.

"Stretching my tail, Espio," he replied, gazing on at the compound though his sight had been somewhere else.

Looking back to his father, he let his conviction show with an expressionless sneer. "But what if you could see, dad?"

Locke blinked at his question. "Yes I could, but how?"

"Through me," Aleutian said, drawing his eyes in rudimentary confidence. Checking Espio than Shadow, both mobians' attention squarely on him, he faced forward to his coming target. "If I can get my hand on that wall, I could trace the inside and find a spot to get us in with my sight. Like we did with that tree the other day."

A slight tilt of his head back as the memory struck the older Guardian. He saw the whole act bombarding in his head. "You're going to need to work fast to get in, but what then? As soon as we pop in there–"

"We can work fast," Aleutian drove with a subtle voice. Turning to Espio, he asked, "You know what to grab, right?"

The chameleon nodded on a surely face. "His computers aren't hard to crack. With the way the Bee-Hive's system was three weeks ago, I can download the cipher and anything else."

"What about me?" asked Shadow. Both echidna's could see the hedgehog was wanting his share of this.

Bitting his lower lip, Aleutian returned his gaze to the main building. "If my hunch is correct their might be a lower lever to this place. Want to have a look?"

Shadow faced the structure of their collective attention. For a while he remained silent. "Yeah. Yeah, I can take it."

"And you, son?" Locke pondered aloud.

For a moment, and just that, Aleutian held his breath, mostly for himself. He had the idea touching his mind and soul; wondering if it was what was driving to do this.

"I'll go find Rouge. She shouldn't be hard to find."

"I'd bet money on that," Espio quipped without remorse. "For all we know she's down in those lower decks you think this place has. Probably lost."

He shook his head. "Nah, I can find her. From what I know of her, we might use the same tricks and go the same places." Easing his broad muzzle to Espio's ear, he added in a serious tone, "Once I find her with the explosives, I need you to find me after you're done."

Espio looked on to him with a furrowed brown. "What–why?"

The chameleon watched Aleutian roll his eyes, mostly at himself. "I've never blown a building up before. I need your _explosive_ work."

A smirk in grandeur to himself. "My fireworks have not disappointed."

"Cool."

Locke's deep voice floated down. "And me son?"

Aleutian rolled over on his side and steadily, and slowly, climbed to his feet. He kept his back to his father, only turning when he heard Espio struggling to his own feet. "I want you to get us in, then get yourself out." He closed his eyes, fisting his hands as his head dipped. He was asking himself if he was sure about this. "Just watch the gear and our backs. If the things go wrong, dad–"

"Son."

Aleutian held up his palm, eyes looking away in thought. "Um, I–"

"Son, take Archimedes with you." Locke saw his words grab his sons head and eyes and gentle pulled his attention toward his caring, affirming expression as if his own hands had done this...like when he was five. "I'll stay here and keep watch on the perimeter, and the bots. Besides, you're going to need my eyes when you're at the wall. If a bot gets too close, I'll shout to Archy and have him pull you all out."

It seemed his words to a while to reach Aleutian, but his son finally nodded after a moment. Yet, when he peered up, his eyes held a malice tone to them and aimed straight at Archimedes on his shoulder. _"Let it die, son."_

"_It won't for some time to come, Locke,"_ the fire-ant replied. _"But I know what he is seeking, and I can deliver it _this_ time."_

"Fine," Aleutian replied. "But he goes with Espio once we get inside." He focused on the Archimedes fully. "I'll do my best to search for the control center, but my sight is limited. If I can find it, teleport him there and let him do his voodoo."

A curt bow of the slouch hat. "You have me, lad."

_F_rom Locke's shoulder erupted a _poof_ of purple smoke and in an instant the dark olive colored fire-ant was standing on Aleutian's shoulder. For the moment, handed down mentor of three generations and the one Guardian he hadn't had the better chance to pass on his life's wisdom locked eyes with each other. So much could have been avoided; both glares conveyed this to each set of eyes. But Aleutian said he was willing to place it aside, Archimedes remembered...and he had already. He was just upset Aleutian had accepted his apology fully. And he couldn't blame him one bit.

So much could have been avoided.

"All right blokes," Archy announced, turning to Espee and Shadow. Gather around if you fancy a trip," Pinching the brim of his hat, bringing down further at his eyes. "This is going to be fast, lads...and it better be."

Locke stepped forward, snagging Espio binoculars from him as he past, bringing them up to his eyes and scanned the compound. One of the two bots armed with swords was marching the closest fence line towards them to the west while a single bot was making its way east along the wall of the large structure. "Archy, you're going to have an opening here real soon." Looking to the corner, he descried the second patrolling bot rounding the eastern corner of the buidling. In about ten seconds it'd be passing under the awning that stretched from one building to the next. In another fifteen, it would round the corner and spot the group. "Get ready."

Espio stepped next to Aleutian. "Hope you can pull this off."

"You and me both," Shadow remarked, sliding himself between the two while looking straight into Aleutian's eyes.

The Guardian didn't flinch a nervous muscle. Instead he met Espio's eyes. "Hey Espio." The echidna's eyes drift to the chameleon's left wrist where his four throwing knives laid inside their large sheath fixed to his upper forearm. "Got a knife I can borrow."

"What?" Archy nearly yelp. "Aleutian, you have your skills–"

"Not to mention these," Espio put in, pointing to the Guardian's spiked gloves.

But Aleutian barley shook his head, tugging his lower lip by covered teeth. "I'm not well versed with them. I need something I know I can use, and you have them."

Locke's quick voice came over the still air. "Let him have it, Espio."

The chameleon eyed the elder Guardian as he felt with his right hand for his lowest knife in its nestled place on his left arm, pulled it out, twirled it a half revolution where the blade landed in his gloved hand, and slide the handle to Aleutian. The guardian gripped it, letting his index finger ride the length of the metal handle with three holes drilled into, opened his left jacket flap and placed it in an inside pocket.

Locke's voice chorus, "Five..."

Aleutian gave an assuring, harden face to Shadow.

"...Four..."

The hedgehog nodded; the thought of enemies slipping with it.

"...Three..."

A quick glance to Espio.

"...Two..."

And a curt smirk exfoliated from his lips.

"...One..."

Archimedes voice replaced all sound. "Here we go."

Sight dissipated under a harsh cloud of purple smoke; with it, all feelings of direction. A sinking sensation of weightlessness engulfed the pit of Aleutian's stomach–partly from the act Archimedes was conducting, but mostly from the trapped feeling that if he messed up in the next second, there was possibly no way. Then again, he'd felt this feeling once before, remembering his sight fading when he'd collapsed on Emi-La's dead body, then feeling the weightless that he was experiencing now, then waking up with Faith Drake's hands damping his head under a wet cloth, her voice bringing him back to consciousness. When one nightmare stopped and another began.

He hopped that as his feet felt the soft clumps of ground returning he was waking from his last nightmare.

"_I'll see you when I get back, father."_

Just as the smoke began to clear, Espio remerging beside him, Shadow in front, his eyes caught the grey concrete wall directly to his right and before he could think it, his hand had slapped the tips of his fingers on a lone cinder-block spread. Immediately he dove his corporeal vision straight through the wall, focusing through the pits and canyons of the block, slicing through its harden molecules before halting when he was viewing inside a dark room, saved the blinking red lights of idle computers and machines. He paused for a brief moment, waiting to see if anything moved.

There! A single sway of a large hulk roved to the right, uncovering a single florescent light stand that was hoovering over a table with something covered over it in a white sheet.

Aleutian steered sideways to the east side of the room, finding his vision flash in total blackness before reappearing in adjacent room. Every over head light was on inside it, but it was too large and cluttered with machines to make a fast entry.

"Not there, lad. I thought a saw a camera on the wall," Archimedes voice echoed in his ear. The fire-ant was fully connecting into his sight, and somehow Aleutian was aware of him.

"I can feel you inside my head–"

"Good, tell your father that later...focus."

Tilting his head, the echidna slewed his sight further across the wall, following the connection until again a flash of black signaled he'd slammed into the far wall, crossed it in sea of motion lines, and stopped in a small room, bare to the shelves and floor. "That might be it?"

"Best hurry, Aleutian. Your father gives us five seconds before the bot rounds the corner."

A quiver from his head. Indecisiveness filled him. He wasn't sure if Archy could get them _all_ in to that small space. He followed the wall further down, watching the support rails pass him as if he was driving over a guttered-bridge, crossed the bridge to the next room, but soon found himself looking down a darkened hall. A single, bare florescent light bar flickered over the short passage way–

"I don't like this," Archy shouted in a hoarse whisper.

"Neither do I," he groaned evenly.

But there was no other choice. Archy's feelings powered that conclusion straight to his mind.

"Your father is saying now!"

"Then do it!"

For the moment he had before all his sight was taken from him, Aleutian let go of his inner vision, finding his eyes staring at Shadow's wide red pupils. Something passed between them but he didn't have time to think of what it was. Just beyond the hedgehog's, when their eyes had unlocked from each other, he saw the beginning lines of an Eggpawn's figure jutting from the corner.

Then the feeling of weightlessness saturated him.

* * *

Locke nearly collapsed when he deflated his lungs. The bot had pivoted right on the spot he was calculating it would, turned its round torso, and possibly never saw a shred of the purple smoke dissipate into the air like fog leaving a calm meadow. And with it, his mentor, a being beholding a grudge, a friend to his youngest son, all in the care of his eldest...hoping his path was turning to his true calling.

"_I'll be here, Aleutian. I promise, this time."_

_

* * *

_Okay, it's me again. How did this one fair? Was the suspence right? Does it feel rushed? I hope not. Please let me know. I will be doing an edit with this but I may not change to much around, except the damn spelling.

Thanks y'all see you next round, and hopefully the full conclusion.


	40. Toxicity

Holley bovine it's been awhile! Yikes when was it the last time I updated...a decade ago? Sure feels like it.

Life has me trapped by the neck until somewhat recently. And to add, this chapter has been really hard to write. Lots of pauses, lapses in my writing voice, and other projects I'm gearing up for. And to be honest, it was hard to get into Aleutian's character for a time. He is coming back, and I hope I nailed him down.

After this chapter, one more left and an epilogue. Then a break for awhile, and for school, and hopefully then next installment of The Chronicles of Aleutian.

This is a whopping 21,000 word chapter, so take your time. I really tried for the suspense, plus what I'm known for in my writings with character development. I did bring out more of Aluetian's past with this, while keeping some of him a secret. Next novel I will definitely bring more of that out.

Disclaimer (if I can still do it), I do not use any of the characters for any profit that the subject of other people's creation from this fandom.

Until then:

Enjoy, and please tell me how I did.

* * *

**Toxicity**

By: Mauser

Slipping her left eye diligently slow around the corner, Rouge expelled the held air from her lungs in an equally slow sigh. The long corridor beaconed her to round it, empty of anyone or anything that made the thief in her accept the invitation to be scoured and possibly pilfered of new belongings to her before the _boys_ got their turn at the leaden, walled compound. And one light to her liking; barely.

Pressing her back further against the wall, she turned her head to the right and glanced down the way she'd came. Nothing except for a few hydraulic doors and another corridor that branched right towards the end of the hallway she stood in. To her left it continued down till it ended to something she thought was a rusty cage cut in half. A dim florescent light flickered at the foot of it, but it could have been a twinkling star due to the length of the hall. But either way, when she looked up, her heart stopped for the third time since she had dropped in from the ceiling: a camera panned its lense to the right, stopped, stared, then like rejecting its own image, panned back to the left. And the fact the first one she had spotted didn't set off any alarms, and herself into full blown panic, when she'd turned the first corner just behind her and came face-to-lense with a it was feet a miracle couldn't reach. It could have taken at least three and a half portraits of her trimmed figure as she froze in complete terror and embarrassment of being spotted. Then like the one above her now, drifted itself on its servo and ignored her. Why she felt hurt like that, even before a camera, she couldn't fathom why. _At least the place didn't go bonkers_, the white furred bat told herself.

A lone thought crossed her as she peered back down the corridor: _It can't be _this_ easy. Eggman loves to make me work at my beautiful talent._

For once in her life, and she hoped only _once_, she was cursing her broad female anatomy, strain to suck in her chest while giving her best footwork to sidestep around the corner. Eggbots on vacation or not, she was still going to play it safer than she had before her training decided to come along and play too. Keeping her back against the wall, Rouge felt the cold concrete with her hands, letting her fingers run inside the grooves while putting her head on a swivel, letting her keen, large ears have free reign over her senses. She could see the indentation of archways to the many doors on either side of the corridor, never bothering to count them. Glancing back over to her right, she smiled and pushed away from the wall once she saw she was out of the camera's sight range. At least now she wouldn't activate any door sensors and accidently open one up to the next shift of Eggbots.

Speaking of doors, they lined this corridor as well. Not as numerous as the passage she just left, but she could count on her white gloved fingers and even have digits to spare for all the overhanging florescent lamps illuminating what the metal nameplates were identifying what room held what. The first on her right that she sauntered–and boldly at that–passed read: _Machining_. From her junkets inside Eggman's labs deep in Robotroplis, her mind depicted large metal lathing machines and huge stamp-presses that always spawned superficial images of her well formed body being squished under the large jaw as he crushed her without mercy. Why she stayed the heck away from those things. If the world's most expensive diamond was lodged anywhere near the thing, well, it wasn't looking expensive anymore.

She shuddered and chased away the thoughts with a scant eye to her left. _Bio-studies?_ she read with a puzzled voice. With the syllable _Bio_, Shadow came straight to mind. And along with the way she found him, his body and face dormant as his body laid embalmed in the test tube filled with green liquid. And she remembered whatever buttons she'd pushed triggered those red eyes to snap open. That's what she will always reflect on for the rest of her life when the word _bio_ is presented to her. It was what was posted above the large metal doors that she went through: _Biostasis._ But _Studies_? Dissections came to mind. And paper work–

A _creek _leaked to her ears just ahead of her, snapping her mind to where it needed to be; situational awareness. She froze where she took her last step. Her eyes searched the dim corridor, straining to ignore the flickering light further down and tried to focus where the noise had come from. It sounded like it originated from the ceiling, but all she could make out was the vast forest of overhead piping. Was it steam, water, or whatever surged through the pipes that birthed the sound? Whatever it was, it didn't came back–

_Clack–clack–clack_.

Rouge knew the steady, rhythmic footfalls of an Eggbot anywhere. Especially one marching on cold concrete. As she turned her head toward her back, the groans of the servos invaded her large ears, ordering her torso to move in the direction of the creak. An oval shadow danced on the far wall at the end of the corridor, coming from the weak light that shown over that half-caged thing she remembered seeing. Her mind raced in instant panic with the dreaded, _Uh, oh_ sounding the alarm in her head.

She looked forward, judging whether to keep going. But the _creak _from before halted her.

The footsteps _clanked_ closer, louder. Her own feet inched a step forward. Then another. Before her third was completed she was facing forward, willing herself to start making decisions either to try for a door and pray the room was unoccupied, or move faster to the intersecting corridor a good run ahead of her and risk rounding it into the eye of another camera? Her mind was bolting, her body almost doing the same.

Her eye focused on a metal sliding door to her right, and started to pivot her foot to head straight for it–

A dark shadow engulfed her sight. Just before her heart received the signal to skip a beat or two, she felt her feet leave the bare, concrete floor, felt her body become wrapped at the waist by a tense fur arm, felt her physique being lifted toward the ceiling; being twisted toward the pipes. And just as she blinked, just before she could let out a scream, Rouge's eyes met a set of blue, crisply drawn hues that quickly looked into hers, then darted up in the direction of the roving Eggbot that had just turned and began its tour of the corridor.

"Don't make a sound," came the eyes' faint whisper, yet filled with grit in its low, male tone. "Level your legs to mine and straighten your tail flat against you as best you can. And lower your heart rate."

_That's easy for you to say!_ came the cynical side of her, her pupils studying the face that was a mere centimeters from hers–she traced the trailing end of a line down the broad muzzle of the man's face. Then her heart tightened when she descried the head-spines of the echidna that now held her. Bringing her chin down, she peered past a jacket and straight at a white crest etched on the figures chest. It couldn't have been him? He had left over two days ago. Had it been that long?

Her legs began to burn as she held flat–and without any support–next to his. She tried to push it away, praying her endurance was going to be enough to hold herself together. With her ears twitching as the _clanks_ echoed loudly below them, she couldn't held her eyes to gaze at his, watching the glare of the yellow bot through them, and pass under.

And then she closed hers. The aches increased as she did. The burning roared through her mind. But she breathed in, keeping it shallow, focusing to lower her heart rate, knowing if she spiked anymore the roving droid could pick up the influx of sinus rhythm, and in turn, pick them up.

Numbness started to seep in down her thighs, then came the cramps, all of it moving passed her knees and into her calves like an agony filled train coasting without a brakeman.

But the _clanking_ changed pitch, ebbing away from them. Could she at least drop her legs now? Or will her sudden movement produce a creak from the pipes, or would the shift make _him_ loose his hold and they both plummet to the floor?

The footfalls faded, and her heart felt the urge to jump, hoping it was okay to at least start the next round of a panic frenzy. As the _clanks_ became distant, she felt the firm arm around her ease up around her waist. Her legs dangled out of pure necessity for her cramping muscles, and before she could fully relax, the echidna swung himself down with her still in his arm, holding to a steel pipe above them with the other, planting her down on the floor before he landed smartly without so much a clap from his shoes.

Rouge kept her envious drawn eyes at him as she watched him turn to face where the Eggbot had disappeared to, tracing the painted, leaping Griffin from the _Freelanders_ banner under it. She could still smell the diesel from the _Plunger's_ last sail.

And she couldn't hold herself back any longer. "I knew you would find me again, Aleutian."

The fully expecting abrupt turn came from the crimson furred echidna, and she was bathing in the coming embrace of his arms around her, wondering if she would survive the sweeping off her feet and the kiss.

But the sharp turn was about as far as he got. Instead, and to her sinking heart, he glared at her with his blues engulfed in utter seriousness. "Where the charges?" he ignited under a turned down voice for noise discipline.

Rouge crossed arms tightly against her chest and sagged a hip. "Well, that's a nice way to say _hi_ to a girl."

She saw the tightening of his lips and found his spiked–knuckled gloved hand wrap around her right arm, and with a slight shove, moved her closer to the bare, bricked wall. "I'm sorry, _where_ did you put those charges?" he said, mocking himself from his previous question.

A matching sneer. "Oh, I'm doing fine, Aleutian. How's your father?" she released with a snide whisper. "C'mon. Can you just say hello, how are you?"

"I _would have _if you'd stayed with Espio."

A hint of a knowing smile. "Oh, you can't keep a girl _waiting_." Something toyed with Rouge's mind. "Say, how did you and Shadow keep from killing each other."

"'Cause there was a damsel distressing _us_. Congrats on the peace keeping. Had to come and find you from jeopardizing the whole thing." Aleutian closed to her face. "Now, where are the charges?"

"Hidden."

"Where?!" he nearly bellowed. He was playing right into her hands.

She gave a smile filled to the brink of deviousness, hooking her finger under his chin and tickling him. "I only show guys who are nice–"

He grabbled her hand and twisted her wrist just enough to show her he wasn't going to play her games. "Too bad you're fresh out of _nice guys_. Now, mind telling the guy you are throughly ticking off where the _nice_ building-crumblers are?"

With a squint, scathing eye, and her insides wallowing in defeat from snagging yet another Guardian in her net, all she did in reply was take her thumb and thrust it over her shoulder.

The crossness in his eyes slightly faded, and only slightly. "Well, there's a start," he bestowed in an even, mocking tone, stepping past her.

Rouge turned to follow him only with her eyes. "Aren't worried about the security cameras?" she barbed at his back, hoping that he'd stop cold just for her pure enjoyment.

But he didn't. "Espio has those taken care of. Now lets go."

She started toward him. "You know you should let me lead the way."

He turned his head as he walked, showing his stubbed dread-lock. "Those privileges have been revoked."

Now her face became crossed, glaring at him as he swayed his head around to the passing wall, placing his hand up and letting his fingers slide across the mason blocks. Rouge swore she saw the stare that his father would hold beam to the wall. But Locke melted into her hands. And so did his brother...not as easy due to Julie-Su, of coarse. She was another matter.

But Aleutian. She knew coldness ran in the family, but never so entrenched as it was in this _boy_. What reason did he have to be like this. And in a snap. Yes, he did try to stun her and take her to Ebony Hare. And yes, he did yell at her on the _Plunger_, but Julie-Su got the same beat down. Yet, he did say he was sorry, and that placed a little light into him that told her Aleutian wasn't such a heatless stud–minus the muscles his broader brother possessed. So why doesn't she come out with it and find out why? It couldn't hurt? Might be the right road to win _him _over to her intricate web.

"You know, most guys just melt for me. But you–" Purposefully letting a sigh expunge from her lips. "–you treat me like I'm some object _below_ you. Something Shadow would do."

He strayed an eye to her. "That's because I've been around the block a few times in _your_ neighborhood," he replied, unmoved. Even with the comparison with Shadow.

And just before he was about to say something, Rouge could see it at the edge of his lips, he turned his head away from her–and then he instantly stopped dead in front of her, his fingers still touching the wall. She watched his back straighten as she stepped closer to him, stopping a mere foot away. The thought to ask him what was the matter crossed her mind, but it only did that.

Aleutian's head turned slowly to the wall his hand was placed upon. His eyes this time had widen in a strange gaze; like he was looking through the wall and asking himself if he could believe what he was seeing. And if his mouth hadn't opened in silence, she would pass this off as a fluke in his brain.

She stepped to his left side, touching his arm, readying herself to ask him what was wrong. But she stopped herself again as her gaze drifted up to the light lone florescent light that illuminated the metal sign: _Bio-studies_.

"Hey, Rouge?" whispered Aleutian in a distant voice, his gaze never leaving the wall. "I'm going to need you."

* * *

He heard it, the footsteps unmistakable as it approached the sliding hydraulic door, signaling that his wait was almost over. His frame tensed, lowing his slim hulk so he could push off the floor like a shot. His right hand gripped the knife firmly, almost choking it, but he was going to need the extra force; the other two were harder to kill. Especially the black one. But the one that was coming was unknowingly browsing for an ambush. The only worry he had about it was he hoped the thing wouldn't see his purple skin from the bright glimmer of the screens behind him. He was out of the door's funnel, well pressed against the wall. But he knew how these things operated: unsuspecting movements on their part, their sensors attuned far greater.

Could he vanish and save him the trouble? _No, _Espio thought. He needed to save his energy.

His trance broke as soon as the door slammed open to expose the grey corridor. And with his right hand cocked back across his chest, Espio only let the bot have a single step inside before his arm slashed the air like a tightly wound rubber-band releasing its tension, piercing the head of the bot dead center of it's eyes with his knife. Rolling his feet the instant the feeling of steel-on-steel rammed through his nerves in aches akin to cold pins puncturing below his skin, Espio grabbed the bots head with his left. And in one quick motion, and with his full weight behind him with help from the floor, he pulled and rolled the droid inside the compound's nervous system. The Eggpawn clanked as it was tossed over itself until its legs flopped to the floor, ceasing its motion.

Only when the door slammed shut did Espio finally breathe.

"Thanks, Aleutian," he grumbled, wrestling his knife out of the bot's head. The steel sang an interlude when it was pulled free, him looking up to the broad and cumbersome console his main focus was suppose to be on. Just ahead of him, two more bots lay lifeless just behind the two chairs he had found them sitting in when Archimedes teleported him between the two Eggbots. Espio could still see the bleak surprised glances they stole from each other before he plunged a knife in one and a throwing star in the other. What bothered him about it was even with his proper placement, his weapons were becoming less keen in going through their metal shells. Evident with the black painted bot he was still feeling in his aching muscles. Either he needed to work in sharpening his cold steel blades, or Eggman was improving their construction.

Casting those observations into the trivial pile of his thoughts, he stood up and slipped between the seats and into the large chair to the left. _Now where was I?_

"Helping me access the main data banks, mate."

Espio strayed an eye passed his horn at Archimedes, wondering if Knuckles felt the same way he did about having his thoughts read so freely. He saw the fire ant was walking on buttons, finding that each one he stepped on, a camera image would change on one of the screens above them. The truth that laid in Espio's head was that this compound had way too many monitors for its size.

"Where are they now?" he asked Archimedes in an even voice.

The ant's slouch hat turned up to a screen two rows up and lost in the middle. "Chatting with Miss. Trouble, if you ask me."

"And confirmed," Espio answered without flinching his tone. He could see Archimedes glancing at him oddly from it. Even in midst of the harsh fighting or intense partying afterwards, Espio had a degree of seriousness that was unnerving to some, and unfeeling to many others. He knew it, and really didn't like it either. But what he was doing wasn't a joking matter anymore. For here he was sneaking into another compound, base, or whatever this cold, dry place was, grabbing very important information, and torching the place as his way out.

"Espio," came Archimedes voice, pulling him away from Aleutian and Rouge. "Concentrate, lad."

He didn't respond, only facing his head down at the keyboard in front of him. For the moment his mind lapsed without thought, he let his hands drift on the keys, recalling how he had broken his way inside Eggman's complex cyberframe networks on Charmy's people's behalf...and very solemnly all but the young Prince and his wife, deceased. As he felt for the portable handheld computer in the holder on his hip, he realized on that thought that those emotions, ones he had bartered for, he let their existence into the open, and they all met their underling fates when the Beehive Colony exploded to the four winds, and at his hands. Why things began to loose feeling with him, he mused unhappily.

Flipping the computer open, he sat it down beside a half exposed ball that he concluded without forethought was the curser mouse. Then he felt for the twin cables in the same sack and pulled them out. Once he felt the tangled mess release their slack on gravity's whim, he fished under the heavy panel for the connecting ports. He found them the split second the pad of his index finger under his glove rubbed against a hole. _Eight inch direct_, his mind snapped and pushed the cable up, hooked it under the console, and plugged it in. Then he connected the other end to the handheld, pressed the "on" button, and Nicole flickered to life.

Working the large keyboard he sought out the larger screen in front of him and squinted at the green letterings. He exited out the security monitor program and dove for the main frames' data banks. That was easy enough for him. But the password was what demanded his aggravation.

"Nicole, are we secure?" he asked, never looking to see if Nicole's manx face had appeared on the handheld beside him.

"_For the moment, Espio. I'm going to gain access but then you are on your own. Can you manage?_" said the female voice.

"Yes. I got you half way this time. I'll upload what I find and broadcast it when we are out."

"_Roger; I'm almost there...now. Good luck._"

Espio nodded at the screen. "Thanks. Tell Saint John we're in."

"_He knows–_"

And the screen flashed and her face was gone. All he could read now was that the handheld was awaiting for data. "Now on to the fun stuff."

A click came from Archimedes direction. "Hey, found 'ole Shadow."

Espio peered up and searched out the screen the fire ant was looking up to. "Where is he?" he asked, finding the monitor and hardly seeing Shadow in the nearly washed, dim lighted corridor he was easily striding in. He only got a glimpse of the hedgehog's back.

"Don't know. Haven't quite got the lay of the land here. From the look I got, he just got done shopping."

"Say what?" Espio snapped, breaking his serous pose in his attitude.

All four arms of Archimedes shrugged. "He had sacks slung over his arms."

The chameleons brows furrowed before they rose. "Oh. Hope that's what Aleutian is talking about with her?"

A jump and a button pressed and Archimedes was staring up at the young Guardian and the bat. "I'm sure that has come up by now seeing how empty handed the Sheila is." He paused for a moment, crossing his lower arms while scratching his chin with his free right hand. "Hmm, he's stopped at some door."

Steeling a glance away from the screen in front of him, Espio saw that the camera was pointed straight down the hall at Aleutian with his hand up on the wall. Rouge was there, clinging to him. But his look. It had turned cold, almost in a silent cry of horror.

"What's going on?"

He saw the fire ant's body rise and lower with a heavy sigh. "He's peering into the room. He can see through walls, around objects, and inside people. He could almost be the best doctor in–"

The slam of Espio's fist jolted Archimedes to turn his attention to him. "That's how he was beating us at _Cheat_! He could see what cards we held."

A gulp then boiled up a disenfranchised smile on the fire-ant. "Or one heck of a gambler."

The chameleon took a breath and eased his eyes back on the screen. He was now sifting through the compounds stored channels of communications. But those weren't totally on his mind:

"So what has been happening with him and you?" he asked, finding his tone had subsided to a nonchalant easiness.

"Reconnecting," Archimedes replied, his own voice oddly quiet, and from what Espio thought was too quick for the change.

Between the files of dates and the green lettered descriptions he was struggling to process, he found his mind flashing to the same camera shot that was panning at Aleutian now as it was then when he found the echidna making his way down the corridor. If Archimedes had teleported them just a hair slower, Aleutian would've brought the whole compound on them. But it was Aleutian did just a while ago that made Espio tilt his head and frown in an absent awe; he was sure he saw Aleutian hear something coming, and with a quick look up to the ceiling, jumped and grabbed a large pipe, after which, he swung and caught it with his legs. Then to Espio's absolute surprise, the echidna wrapped his tail around it. And when he reached down and snagged Rouge, who was possibly the reason why he had found cover in the above plumbing in the first place, Aleutian held himself up as he swung down with his tail and one leg still wrapped around the pipe.

This whole act kept replaying in Espio's head, making him ask, "Did you teach Aleutian that–picking up Rouge the way he did?"

Archimedes held his attention to the numerous monitors. "No," he replied distantly, like wanting far away from the subject.

Espio couldn't help but stray his sight to the fire ant, looking on with a puzzled, yet guarded face. "Do you know who taught him?"

And again, Archimedes didn't turn away from the screens. "Yes."

Just before the chameleon could let out a word from where he'd seen a trick like that, or even who moved either like he or Aleutian, the fire ant had stepped on a button in a box row he'd hadn't selected yet. Both heads turned when a left hand screen from the bottom row turned on just in front of Espio. It had the effect of a rolling graph. Lines bounced up and down at an even pace, yet they were of different colors. On the bottom was in clear letters: SUBJECT TWO.

"What'd you push!?" Espio forced out.

"Don't look at me, lad. I haven't the foggiest." For the moment Archimedes lay silent and studied the screen. When he read the second rhythmic line did his throat jump to his skull. "That's an heart graph."

"I think you mean someone's stats, as Doctor Quack might say," Espio added in a grey voice. "Sinus rhythm."

Without voicing anything, Achimedes pressed another switch with his boot, and the screen above switched from a dark corridor to a second series of pulsing lines. Under it read: SUBJECT ONE. But this one had a different reading on the top line.

"Flat line at the top. But that sinus rhythm is slow, but reading," Archimedes said under a pensive voice.

"What does it mean by 'nero'?" Espio asked, studying the top line as well.

No answer came, but a sigh. "Found anything yet?"

Shaking his head, Espio turned to the monitor in front of him and said, "Nothing yet. I'm searching for the messages that were sent here. There's a lot of data here."

"Shove that aside for a minute, mate," Archimedes said with an air of thought in his voice. Then his tone drifted on the air.

"What's going on here?"

* * *

Its lone eye twitched then. With a mere program being put to its paces, it faded the brightness as light flooded into its red lighted sanctum. It didn't turn to look, instead the tech-bot kept its lone, cybernetic eye down at the strainer that doubled as a tank–

"Oops, I think I got the wrong room."

Its metal skeleton head pivot squarely, bringing its permeant smiling cyclops face to the source of the slightly trembling, yet oddly bright female voice standing in the open doorway. Flickering through modes of visual enhancements, the tech-bot searched its settings before it settled with a red image. Its computer went straight to work when its clear view drew up a female mobian; species: bat. Once it took in the face, it possessed it and came back with the name Rouge: agent of G.U.N. With this trickling through its directives, its artificial intelligence began its sequences of protocols.

It turned its thin, open chassis toward her.

"Well, maybe you can help me anyways?" she said to it.

It passed down the aisle of large, steel constructed lab tables built solidly to the cold concrete floor.

"You see, I'm looking for the ladies room. Can you point me to it?"

It detected a slight strain in her voice. Its data banks replied that she was hiding something. It was logical, concluding she was here without a calculated coincidence.

"Oh, good. I can't thank you enough to show me the way. How _gentle_men of you now to keep a girl waiting, and wandering through the _dark_."

With all this skipping across its many hard-drives and cities of circuit boards, it passed a tray of surgical instruments. Without so much as pivoting its lone ocular, it lifted its five digit hand and snatched a bone-saw from the tray kinetically.

"Yikes! Is this place that bad that you need a weapon?"

She had placed her hands on her hips. Its data-banks processed that she's welcoming some sort of vice for a service. But a different program announced she was lying even with the stance she took. Her eyes, as the facial recognition and language software elaborated, was that her sudden twitch of her left cheek muscle and a scant look to the left indicated her false proposal. Its A.I., however, never matched up all this anyhow. Its purgative was in the loop of how the bone-saw was going to cut her left arm off, then thrash down the center of her chest. By which then it would sound the alarm of the intruders. Lastly, it would be in a better position in the Doctor's best laboratory section of the empire. After all, competition in this bot-eat-bot-empire reigned supreme to get the better places to serve their creator. In fact it knew it had to be the reason why its dear creator had placed the notion of competition in all the Eggbot lines–

A squeak of leather shifting on the concrete floor sounded behind it, abruptly stopping its slow wake to the girl.

Aleutian saw the tech-bot stopped, and he was instantly rounding the heavy, long table and jutting straight for the back of the bot. For the moment he jumped, the moment his right shoe landed on the hydraulic ram that was the bot's calf, the moment he squeezed the steel shaft of the throwing knife between his mashed middle and forth fingers against his palm, he wondered now, and at that instant, if his gloves would shield his hand and body from being electrocuted.

He wrapped his left arm around the bots throat and grabbed its face and eye with a hand that could've held a large melon. And with his fierce eyes locked on the millimeter gap in the vertebra, he slammed the point of the knife through it, slicing the bradded strand of wires and home to the flex-fiberoptic line. Aleutian felt a lone jolt of current spread through his glove, but it didn't surge through his body.

With a brief show of spark, slow, dying groans of the bot's hydraulic pumps, motors, and electric servos echoed as the cyclops fell forward like a cut down tree with Aleutian along for the ride. Its thin chassis frame made a surprising, heavy metallic crash that rattled a few of the rolling trays and electronic machines beside it. Then all was still, including Aleutian. His blue eyes moved in their sockets as he watched for any signs of movement from the bot. Its red glow burned out from its cyclops-eye, along with the spine.

From the top of his sight, Aleutian saw the white boots of Rouge walk to him in an agitated, akimbo stride. "What were you doing, letting him think he was going to have a chance with me!?"

Aleutian straightened himself with his knees still on the bot's back. With one quick jerk,, and an irritable face, he pulled the knife free. "Grow a spine," he sneered at her.

Her mouth gapped at him as her eyes bulged. "Heh, guess that's the last time I give you _my_ help."

He stood up, keeping a safe distance. "Being used isn't fun, is it?"

She was about to go off on him.

And he was about to turn away–not before he wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her down. He cocked his right arm, the double edged blade pinched in his fingers, stopping short of sending the knife hurtling at the figure who suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"Look what I found," ebbed in Shadow's clear voice into the large, dankly light room. As Aleutian lowered his arm, the hedgehog rose both of his. In them were sacks suspended by webbed straps. "Something tells me someone doesn't know how to hid things."

Aleutian rolled his head to a certain girl who was looking at him, but not with the same face as a second ago. He nearly wanted to laugh as she gave a very coy smile to him and in the same instant shrunk herself an inch lower. Even her wings sagged. "Geeze, how'd he find those?"

Shadow walked over to them, only glancing at the dead tech-bot just to step over it. "Hanging from ventilating shaft that collapsed under the weight," he replied without so much as a hint of feeling. He gave the measure of the charges weight when he dropped them at her feet.

Aleutian felt a smirk coming but he let it die. "It's a wonder you've lived so long in your line of work," he sneered at Rouge. He could see she wasn't taking it well behind her cool faced mask. Before he could shake his head and turn away, she did it for him, throwing her chin slightly up and strutting with her back both to echidna and hedgehog.

Rolling his eyes, Aleutian faced Shadow with a lighten expression he has ever offered to him, tucking Espio's blade to the inside pocket of his jacket. "Having fun, yet?"

"Can't say," Shadow replied with the same deadpan response. "I think you're right."

"About what?" Aleutian returned with a bleak notion of surprise.

Shadow glanced over the echidna's shoulder, then gave his full attention to him. "I found a utility elevator down the hall and to the left from here."

"Where again?" Aleutian asked, easing his voice.

Shadow point off to Aleutian's right. "Down that way and left."

"Have you been down it."

A shrug with a fleeting hint of a smirk. "Not yet."

Aleutian was going to ask him something else, but the hedgehog turned his face away from him and starred over his shoulder. He was discovering Shadow's art of killing conversation; actually surprised he'd lasted that long with him.

"So why did you come in here?" the black hedgehog asked.

Giving a quick look about the room, Aleutian replied with an even tone, "I saw something in here that caught my eye. I think I was seeing things."

Shadow nodded for him to turn his attention around to the rear of the lab. When Aleutian did, he found Rouge leaning over a white sheet that had something bulging under it. Wires and clear lines ran from a path to a large machine that had a tank fitted to it while a screen gave out readings that took up most of the body cavity.

She lifted up the sheet with her fingers, and Aleutian stepped forward when he saw her face turn pale. "My gosh!?"

He stopped at the bedside, and pinched the top half of the sheet. With a quizzical, fearful look to Rouge, they both rolled the sheet down.

The blue skin of a chameleon nearly froze his thoughts and emotions solid. Then he comprehended to what he was seeing. He heard the soft, nearly silent beeping rhythm of the boy's heart being registered from the machine beside Rouge. Felt the coldest shiver run down his spine as he realized the pace of his heart was too slow. His eyes traced down the lines that were stabled down the table to keep up off the floor, finding a large clear tube draining into the tank he had descried earlier, it running from the young boy's wrist. For the moment he was piecing the image before him together, Aleutian couldn't feel himself, or even the cold air, until he felt the strain of his opened mouth called him back to his senses.

"What is this?" Rouge asked in a whisper before he could.

His lips moved but no words ever slipped out. Breathing in, he turned to Shadow, finding the hedgehog was sharing the same expression as he. "_Chameleon_?" Aleutian willed himself to say.

Only a nod under boiling red eyes.

"What's going on here, Shadow?" the Guardian asked in a reposed, but knifing tone.

The hedgehog slowly shook his head. "I don't know."

"Can we bring him out of this?" launched Rouge from the other side of the table.

"Come on, you worked for him, Shadow," Aleutian pressed on to the hedgehog, his voice rising with his temper. "You know something about this. What's going on here?"

"I don't know." The hedgehog looked to the echidna, his expression hardening.

"Why is there a chameleon strapped to a table?"

Shadow looked away, bringing his eyes to the motionless blue skinned chameleon. "If I knew I would have told you weeks ago."

"What are they doing to him?" Aleutian shouted with a ramming–

Shadow lunged at the echidna, grabbing his jacket and pushing against an intravenous station the fled on its wheels as Aleutian was pressed against it. "I don't _know_, damn it!"

They both locked stares at each other's eyes, both tasting each other's breath as they held in their rage from going over their equally boiling rims. And as they studied one another's face, Aleutian was beginning to swallow Shadow's sincerity; glimpsing for the single moment Shadow showed he was scared of what he had been involved in, but not directly. Something was horrifying him about it, and from what Aleutian had endured and suffered from his own life, it laid in Shadow's past.

A light voice struck a soft wedge between them. "I guess trust is a commodity these days."

Red and blue eyes turned to Rouge. They looked at her as if she had suddenly arrived in the room. When her tightened, emotion laden face sank between them, Shadow released his hands from Aleutian's jacket. A heavy sigh filled his body, controlling his shoulders, head, and legs, moving him almost mechanically to the other side of the table. "There was something about this compound Eggman didn't want anyone to know about. Including me," he said. His indifferent voice had returned. "It's all I know."

"But how do you know it was a _chameleon_?" Aleutian affronted, yet he kept a leaden edge to his voice.

Shadow gave a slight glance over his shoulder. "I didn't," he replied defensively. Turning at the life support machine, he said, "That came from the cipher that we're here for."

"Okay," interjected Rouge with a trying voice, "but what is Eggman doing with him? Just look at him. He's barely alive." Bitting her lower lip, she edged herself to the chameleon's side, placing her hand atop his forehead. "And cold."

A heavy sigh from Aleutian, his heart weighing to the pit of his stomach. If he didn't look away now, the screams would return. "They're keeping him alive for something," he said quickly, turning away just as fast. For the moment his sight fell on the two rows of long, metal tables, he closed his eyes, breathing in and out, keeping to the sinus rhythm of the boy's slow heart, slowing his intake with the beeps. And slower. Slower–

_Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppp–_

Aleutian turned, arms swaying at his side when her heard the flat-line fill his ears and mind. As his eyes shot open, he felt his soul turn to stone as he witnessed Shadow switching the machine off. His rage was at the edge of his tongue. A scorching heat ran through his body, burning him in a flash he hadn't felt in over two years...and the feeling utterly scarred him. It was in the instant that Shadow had turned his face, had showed his soul, a welcoming cool came over Aleutian in a flash he wished he could feel again in his life.

But not without the hedgehog's own pain.

"Shadow," Rouge shrilled at him, cupping the boys face with her gloved hands. "He was still alive."

"No he wasn't," the hedgehog whispered in utter contempt.

"How do you–"

"Rouge," came Aleutian's baritone voice.

They all looked at each other for a long moment, neither one wanting to give in. Only did the silence leave when Shadow turned on his shoes, the rocket trusters scrapping across the smooth, stoned floor. Aleutian thought he could hear them crying for the both of them.

"Call Espio, Aleutian, brother to Knuckles," Shadow said, his brooding tone echoing in the room. He reached down and picked up the four satchel charges. "He needs to know. And he needs to destroy this place."

* * *

_Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppp–_

If Archimedes hadn't pressed his foot down on the red illuminated button, he and Espio would've never given in to their hold of the flat-lined screen; he didn't even look away. It was as if something in his mind had ordered his leg to release a little more energy to his leg. He let in a breath to calm himself, searching for his heart's rhythm to remind him he was still living. And just as his voice was coming to, he heard a distant male baritone call to him:

"_Archy, we had found a chameleon in a lab-room of some sort. It had _Bio-studies _written over the door. A tech-bot was in here alive, but we're last seeing him dead. You need to tell Espio..."_

The fire-ant looked to the purple skinned chameleon to his left as Aleutian kept speaking, letting his mind become entertained briefly with the young boys entranced gaze at the screen with the second vital-stats still pulsing weakly–

"_...Shadow needs him,"_ echoed Aleutian's voice sternly in his head._"And he's sorry. I'll tell you later when we catch-up. We're going to find the basement to this place."_

Espio's low, soft tone came brazing at Archimedes. "What just happened, Archy?"

Both eyes leapt to the movement that came from the center screen. Shadow was seen walking out under a rigid, embolden stride from the Bio-studies room that Aleutian had referred to, letting his face betray the feelings Archimedes was now very aware of why they so brightly shone from the hedgehog before he turned to the right and done the corridor. Rogue followed out next, her back slightly tilted as she took a more cautious advance in the corridor. She turned behind her, taking a quick look inside the lab just to watch Aleutian take her lead. It all made Archimedes cross his arms briefly at the screen, watching Shadow turn out of sight from the camera's to the left.

The fire-ant turned his attention back to Espio. "Keeping working, lad," he gently laid in an encouraging tone. "There has to be something here."

Espio let his head fall slowly to the computer monitor in front of him, his hands gliding over the keyboard and occasionally to the mouse-ball, working his fingers with gradual speed to his concentration. He pulled up file folders, only reading serial codes as he dove in to view the contents. Shipments of titanium alloy; cargo ship manifest of hydraulic fluid. A click on the back button; a random file folder above the one he left, click; seven crates of positronic brains. Espio's mind conclude they had to be replacement parts, compounding that conclusion as the compound was possibly being uses as a forward repair facility.

It made logical sense to _him, _but Archimedes knew if he relaid what Aleutian had said, he was afraid Espio wouldn't perform the way he is now. As for the fire-ant, aside from reading the chameleon's thoughts, he walked up the large control board, fixated his attention to the next two rows of unlit buttons, and pressed his right boot one on top. A bright, yellow light flickered on from the top most row of screens, making him raise his head to witness several large tubes appear, counting five, and all filled to a line just a foot under the brim with liquids in colors ranging from blue to a bright orange and a clear, oily fluid with small bubbles raising slowly to the top.

He turned his head away when Espio said, "I can't find anything in these files. It looks like it's all resupply shipments, except for Eggpawns. What's odd is Eggman is sending in a lot of titanum."

"Why's that odd?" Archimedes asked, looking back up to the screen with the fluid storage tubes. Blindly, he pressed his boot on the next button.

"Because titanum costs too much, and it's almost too heavy to be placed on your average Eggpawn–" Espio strayed an eye at the top screen that Archimedes had turned on. The screen next to it shown just as bright went it was turned on, showing the service elevator cage. "Where's that?" he asked, skipping around his own thoughts.

"Believe it's the underground portion of the complex," replied the fire-ant pensively.

"Where's Aleutian, Shadow, and Rouge?"

A cable started to move inside the caged barrier on the screen. "My better guess, heading down into the belly."

Nodding off from his left shoulder at Espio, he watched the Chameleon return to search through the computer banks, then stared back up to the screens. Sidestepping as he kept his gaze, Archimedes pressed the next button, holding his breath when the screen beside the first one that had been activated turned on, and shown a large, crude two prong robotic crane that was folded like an arm, hanging idly from the ceiling. Below it sat a portion of a black conveyer belt. Archimedes frowned at the emptiness of what he conceived was a large showing of the underground complex. Shrugging he placed his right foot behind him and began to rock back to energize another monitor–

"I think I found the cipher program!"

Throwing his head around to Espio, he replied, "Upload it quick, lad, if you think it's it."

The Chameleon racked the keyboard in front of him, and as he smiled, the hand-held computer began to come to life. "I'm pretty sure this is it. I'm transferring a whole data bank of messages that seem out of place."

"How so?" Archimedes asked, folding all four of his arms.

A shake from Espio's head. "I went back through some of the _regular_ messages. One came from the Hive Colony just a week before my operation there, and I remember watching Nicole decipher it. But I went further down into the message data banks and pulled up one that had some weird shapes to it; very different from the one I remember." Espio, took a breath.

"Well?" Archimedes said, watching the Chameleon's eyes searching the monitor.

"Well, I clicked on it, and it began to decipher the message by itself. So, I traced through the auto-activation settings and followed it to a stand alone file buried deep in the hard-drives. I mean, deep. It's gonna take about another minuet to upload it to Nicole. But..."

Archimedes pressed the button his boot was on, but didn't bother to look up. "But what?" he asked warily. He could see Espio reading the information as it sprawled across the screen.

"It's that it had some different accessing codes to get into it. I can't jump into the files to see where the program originated due to a password block."

"That doesn't sound uncommon with Eggman, lad," Archimedes said under an obvious tone.

But Espio gave a single, slow shake of his head. "Not unless it is to keep him out."

The fire-ant's eyes slightly squinted, his arms relaxing. "Better explain that one to me?"

A perch of his lips, and his stare narrowing. "The message that was deciphered gave plan orders to keep a lock on files under a password using the cipher itself. I know that doesn't sound out of the ordinary, but...I'm clicking through some recent file creations during the past few days; their security check logs, and they are all unsecured. And the ones that aren't are using the old cipher..."

Espio eyed Archimedes. "All these messages are ready to be sent today, and I guarantee you Knothole will read them, and gain a fix on this location. These messages are mandatory to be sent and they go straight to Eggman." He turned to the computer screen, moving the mouse cursor to click back on the decrypting message he had started. "But these are _request-send_ only, and marked as such. And the asking receiver has their name in the same cipher. Archimedes," Espio held his thoughts as he swallowed. "Someone, or something is hiding whatever is going on here from Eggman. "

A lone squint from his eye, and a shift in his posture brought Archimedes to view the screen he had turned on. The camera was squarely aimed down upon four rows of Tech-bots, their lean skeletal heads facing down, their eyes vacant of electronic irises, their exposed frames at a slumped attention. From the count of the formation, Archimedes estimated forty bots in all, but why were they inactive. In fact why didn't he see more Eggbots roving around the facility. If the cipher was such a high priority of its secrecy, and the vast amount of information sent and received from what Espio was indicating, why was the place a virtual ghost town? And what with the chameleon Aleutian, Shadow, and Rouge had found?

It was time he told Espio–

He didn't get much further than his decision when Espio began reading from the screen:

"'Execute _Program Avalanche_. Add a diagnostic check before the full commitment of upload orders, and only done after deployment and when scans indicate area safe to do so.'"

Archimedes unconsciously stepped back and landed his foot on a button behind him. The corner of his eyes were blinded by the illumination of the bright screen, but he kept his attention solely fixed on Espio. "Please tell me you have found that program?"

"It's deciphering now," Espio said in a breathless voice.

Closing his eyes, Archimedes gave a shallow nod, tightened his arms, and looked up at the screen he had unintentionally turned–

In the brief struggle of his heart to beat, his face melted into pure terror, his eyes locked to burn through the monitor. Not even Espio's stressing voice edged him away:

"'Orders to program stand,'" Espio began, his lungs flexing as his mind was trying to steady himself. "'Seek and eliminate King Acorn, and Princess Sally Alicia Acorn. Targets are to be searched in Knothole City. Possibly both targets will reside in Castle Acorn, and should be searched out that location first. Secondary objectives as follows: eliminated all possible counter targets that will possess immediate threat to self, or creator...Second Directive: route to Robotropolis for further programming.' Archimedes, this isn't–"

Espio was cut short just by the sight when he turned his head to the fire-ant then gazed at the direction the slouch hat was peering up to. All the chameleon could do was cease his breathing as his eyes dried and his stomach torn itself in a frenzy of knots.

"Oh dear Goddess," Archimedes breathed in from the fear he was lost in. "I hope those things aren't active."

* * *

Light began to slip in from the floor, then entered in a wash at their shoes. Aleutian stepped to the far left of the elevator when Shadow pressed himself up against the far right, all the while Rouge stood firmly in the direct center. Throwing a frustrated grim frown to her, Aleutian reached with his right hand and hooked under Rouge's left biceps, pulling her towards him. The force nearly slamming her against the cage. The shaft had a narrow cut for an opening, and just by the grace of Aurora, or just by design, had given cover for both hedgehog, echidna, and now one angered bat. But Aleutian gave her snide look. She didn't let it phase her, returning it with a smirk that told him she was immune and to try again. Sighing loudly to exhume a low groan, Aleutian faced the coming opening while reaching into his jacket and brought out Espio's throwing knife. He gripped it with his right hand, keeping the blade's edge aligned with his forearm. If training still served him, a back-handed trust could deliver the punishment needed to kill a bot. If it didn't, Lopper was surely going to have his hide.

A green glow shimmered gradually from his left; his eyes instantly falling upon Shadow's right hand where the green aura was coming from. Their eyes met, and Shadow gave a slow nod. Somewhere in his conscience Aleutian felt a smile exhume on his face. But he hid it from the surrounding present company.

He closed his eyes, doing it tightly, forcing a menacing urge coming straight from the blackness of his soul. _Go away...you're not apart of this._

The elevator stopped with a deeper drop before the correcting rise. Actuators wailed as the gate lifted up in a slow draw. Leaning out, Aleutian peered inside the lower underground, descrying only the concrete pillars that held the top floor at bay. His nostrils felt the damp air try to suffocate him, yet, something lingered with it that was all too familiar, if only his mind would reconnect to the link. And it came when Rouge's, feminine body pressed up against his, making him look to her with a jumping heart just by seeing her peer out from around him.

"Looks clear, boys. You two can put away your teeth, now," she said in a cool, bantering voice. Stiffening her back in a mock of self-confidence, she stepped out of the elevator, never bothering to see if Aleutian or Shadow would follow her at the same pace, much less the same matter. She only achieved three steps. From out of the corner of her eye she glimpsed something to her right.

Seeing her stop and gasp, Aleutian –and with a surprise that made him smirk– Shadow both grab their allotted arm of Rouge, and both pulled her back inside, shoving her to the rear of the elevator. Letting go, Aleutian reasserted himself against the right side of the elevator, while Shadow stepped out of the carriage, his arm was vertical to his chest; his hand knifed and glowing green.

If they had any inclination to even send a signal to their hydraulic legs, Aleutian knew he would only have enough time to dodge back inside the elevator and let Shadow handle it. But the rows of tech-bots didn't move. Instead, he and Shadow looked on at the slumped, lifeless frames for the moment they had of solidarity with each other.

"What are these, Shadow?" Aleutian asked, his tone calm, unlike his aggressive posture.

"Labor bots," came the black hedgehog's balanced, uncaring voice.

Rouge nearly scurried around Aleutian and in front of Shadow to reacquaint her vision of what she had seen. "Hey, these guys look different from _Mister Scary_ from upstairs."

Aleutian looked back behind him to Shadow, noticing the hedgehog had relaxed his hand to his side. "I take it one-eyed was a creation?" he chided, placing Espio's knife back in his inner jacket pocket.

"From Eggman, himself, I surmise," Shadow said, taking a stride to the left and drifting through the first line of pillars, the glow from his hand dissipating. As Aleutian watched him, he could see that Shadow was moving towards the brighter expansion just ahead.

His attention left the hedgehog's back when Rouge touched his arm. Her eyes made his emotions wander astray when his met. "You think he wants those charges, now, or when he's finished with all the rides?" she asked him.

He smiled for what seemed like a wink of time, but felt like an eternity for his soul. He wanted to answer, yet, his insides drained of his courage. With it his smile. With it his stare into her eyes. Looking back inside the elevator, he felt his soul retreating back into the darkness that dangled from his heartstrings.

"Hey, Brother to Knuckles."

Aleutian turned to see Shadow entrenched in a hard stare at the beacon of the harsh yellow light. "Does he always address people like?" he asked from the corner of his mouth.

"You should hear what he calls Sonic," Rouge replied in a mocking manner.

Aleutian was waiting for her to educate him but saw that she didn't get as far as a jarring look when the brooding eyes of Shadow aimed their red pupils at them, the hedgehog merely turning his head to do so.

"Better grab the satchels," Aleutian said in a voice aligning with resign.

Rouge did a protesting step forward. "But–"

Snapping his head, Aleutian bared his tightened face with his scars. "Don't argue with me," he said in an uncaring voice. Turning away, he missed the barbing look from Rouge that he knew was coming his way as he began moving towards Shadow. "Just do it."

He heard her growl at the back of his jacket before he heard her grudgingly turned to her ordered task. "Yeah, sure. I can do it. Ha, if your brother or father were here, I'd have _them_ hauling all this stuff."

Aleutian stopped cold and tried not to spin completely around and assault Rouge with a stare he knew he would regret giving. Instead he held it all at bay under a deadpan expression as he turned his head and watched Rouge kneel over to grab the charges. He was beginning to know why Julie-Su hated her so much. If Rouge kept up with him the way she was going, the tables were going to turn, and turning upside down for everyone. But he couldn't explain the sudden feelings of her, or about her, when she would just arrive and try to handle things, and he watching her like a curious spectator.

Maybe it was just another female being close by was reminding him of Emi-La, and it wasn't just Rouge being Rouge.

_Cool it, bub. She was far classier...Far classier. _

Shadow's heavy footfalls came up to him, making him look away as his voice echoed in his head. _Yeah, cool it_. Somewhere in both of their torrents of souls, they both managed to match the same emotionless, overserious looks that each held.

"Are we done yet?" Aleutian asked Shadow.

The hedgehog stiffened his jaw before turning his grim face to the left that seemed to invite Aleutian to do the same. When the Aleutian's head followed, he didn't feel his jaw drop, or even felt his posture give. Woodland camouflage pattern was the first thought that went through his mind. Gazing briefly at the olive, tan, brown and green blotching colors, overlaying and underlaying against one another, his brain began to add the pieces of the heavy hulk behind the solid, floor to ceiling plexiglass. Vacant, dark eye sockets struck his own, peeling away what shield he though he had left to kept his fear from flowing through his body. In the heavy light, Aleutian could make out the irises that were lifeless. But the full body and faces of the bots were on display. Heavy chest walls indicated the armor that he was sure no hand held blaster could penetrate. To his awe, every joint had been sculpted, and covered with the same hard metal, right down to the legs and feet of the machines standing in front of him. And their hands were fisted, making the whole line seem fossilized in a strict attention, giving evidence of their principle design and creation. Yet, Aleutian couldn't find a single weapon on them.

"Com-bots," came Shadow's foreboding voice. "They look to be new generation."

Aleutian turned his head to the hedgehog, his mouth hanging, but his aversion seeping from his eyes. "You knew about these!?"

Shadow looked to Aleutian with a bit of surprise. "You mean you never heard of Com-bots before?"

The echidna didn't get a thought in when Rouge stepped beside the two, dropping the charges as soon as her eyes made contact to the metallic monsters slumbering between the glass. "Oh, great...how many of these things are there?" She struck her head directly to Shadow. "You knew about these _killers_ being here, and didn't let on."

"Hey, easy on the hedgehog," Aleutian pushed, along with his face, "I'm the one asking first."

Shadow leaned into Aleutian then beamed his eyes at Rouge, both seeing the hedgehog's visage wither from its fortress expression. "You never heard of Com-bots before?" he repeated, mostly to Aleutian.

The echidna tighten his jaw. "Oh, I've heard of Com-bots, and thankfully I've never had to fight one." He stepped closer to Shadow, jabbing a straightened hand at the hedgehog's white chest. "But you said, _'new generation'_."

Blue and red eyes held each other stares.

Shadow gave a squint from his right eye that Aleutian almost missed. Then the hedgehog turned his whole body to the row of Com-bots. "I didn't know of these Com-bots, so don't accuse me of withholding."

"Too late for that," trumped Aleutian.

But the hedgehog turned his head, frowning in deceleration of his innocence. "I didn't." He returned his pensive eyes to the machines. "Not these. But I can tell they are new just from knowing the latest ones I had seen being decommissioned in Robotropolis. The ones here, their frames have more armored coverings to protect their flex joints."

"Okay," began Rouge from between the two, "so, why aren't the labor-bots manufacturing more under our noises. I mean, c'mon, this place has been a virtual ghost town since I came in."

Both hedgehog and echidna glared at Rouge. "What do you mean, _I_?" Aleutian scoffed.

"Hey, I can't help it if you boys are slow," Rouge said, twisting to the left. Never minding to pick up the charges, she started walking, weaving around a pillar and taking a tour of the lined machines like she was window shopping for her next wardrobe. Her wings swayed as her stride fell into a saunter.

Shadow and Aleutian looked to each other, only resigning their stares back to the Com-bots. "Any takers on why this whole basement isn't filled with these things," Aleutian offered evenly.

A slow shake of Shadow's head. "I can't see why the Kingdom, or even us, have run across one of these. From the beacon I remember Eggman watching, and from the time I caught him, he would have had enough time to produce more and make them active."

"Hey, boys," came Rouge's yelling voice bouncing off the concrete walls.

But they ignored her; Shadow crossing his arms to their large, camouflage coated object of their attention:

"Look at their feet," Shadow observed, nodding with his head and straying a finger, "they're riding a conveyor."

Aleutian saw the black strip that was the belt of the conveyor system. "You think it's automated construction?" But his question didn't make any sense, and finding the reason when he looked over his shoulder and eyed the empty underground. "Even so, where are the supplies and material? I'm sure these things take a lot of steel to produce–"

"Hey, boys!" Rouge shouted from their left, grabbing their full-annoyed glares and making them lean out from the square concrete pillar they were beside to see her. She held a face that traced fear and compassion from her heart. "You guys need to look at this."

It wasn't but a few steps forward that Aleutian and Shadow saw what Rouge had been worked up over, and they both stopped and looked to each other in drawn gazes. Aleutian took the lead and nearly ran down the small line of pillars, stopping when his eyes grasped the full picture that Rouge was standing beside.

A green skinned chameleon lay on a gurney, covered in a white sheet. Slipping from under the sheet was the same bunch of wires and clear tubes that they had seen from the other chameleon– and who was now on, remorsefully, to meet Aurora. And those same strains of wire and tubes led to a large machine just behind the Chameleon's head. But this time they only protruded from her left side.

"I think she's still alive," Rouge said gravely concerned that was just shades from what she was just a second ago.

Aleutian blinked at Rouge, then darted his stunned and perplexed stare downwards what he now realized was a girl under the sheet. Her smooth facial textures and soft lips grabbed at his soul and jolted his reservoir of pain back to full circulation upon gazing at her. He felt his heart gradually pound faster in his chest, twisting his insides around as the image of the chameleon's prone body mixed in his thoughts...his memories. For all he saw of her green skin, he saw red fur; dreads mixed with long red hair; himself holding her, begging for her to blink her lifeless eyes at him.

He shut his own, concentrating to think of something else. But when he opened in the wink of time he closed them, Shadow had moved over to the machine the girl was attached to. He felt his grief being chased away by his renewed sense of anger flowing through his narrowing eyes. "Shadow!"

The hedgehog dropped his hand on the machine, seemingly ignoring the echidna's tightened voice. He began operating the touch screen, turning their area of the dark room into a sea of green when the monitor came to life, and Shadow's face bathing with it, showing his steadfast drive to do what _he_ thought was necessary. Within a few drops of his fingers, his white glove dancing over the screen like a disinterested dancer performing with an unworthy song, the monitor flashed to black, and with it, several lines that soon fed into rhythmic arcs and dives.

Aleutian fostered the urge to launch himself forward, felt his throat become tangled with his feverish thoughts to voice his fortitude towards Shadow. He was just an inch of muscle fiber away–

A puff of solid smoke erupted on his right shoulder, ordering his hand on instinct to slam it to the threat. But pain suddenly rushed to his fingertips that were spearing forward, instantly stopping him. And when the smoked clear, he saw by the two smaller hands of Archimedes, the fire-ant's eyes drawn with a hint of affirmation, however, fostering a prominent look of disappointment.

"Not fast enough, young Guardian," Archimedes flatly scolded in a dry tone. He could see Aleutian was taken aback at his sudden strength. "We fire-ant's possess a world of talents unknown to the world itself."

Releasing his hand, Aleutian lowered his arm, then eyes back at the girl. With a shake of his head, he raised a harden gaze to Shadow. From the shift of Archimedes body, and from the corner of the Guardian's eyes, the fire-ant followed his every motion.

But from his back, a shallow, breathless voice haunted at the four of them:

"What–what is _this_?"

Aleutian, Rouge, and even Shadow, had turned their heads to see Espio nearly forcing himself to step forward, his own eyes burning at the sight of the supine chameleon of the stainless-steel gurney. As Espio's solid posture filled with the painful terror he was seeing, Aleutian grinded his teeth and his head around to Archimedes, the only Mobian not giving his attention to one stricken chameleon. And it wasn't the girl. _You didn't tell him like I told you to, Archy?!_

Just a slight lowering of his shoulders told Aleutian that Archimedes got his message. But as to what the fire-ant was thinking was anyone's guess.

Except Aleutian. He didn't need his father's, or even forefather's learned trait to know what Archimedes was reminding himself. _All behind us, eh? And here we go again? Except this time you didn't come when I'm in severer pain...not when I'm dying. This time you're doing to Espio–right in front of me!_

Archimedes tilted his head like a snake finding a threatening scent in the air. "I needed him to get the information _we_ needed with a cool head." Scared Guardian and fire-ant held reserved stares following his words. "We'll talk about this later, Aleutian."

Fighting back the call to fist his hands, Aleutian instead bladed his stance off as if ready to pound his father's, and brother's, guiding conscience. Archimedes had been anything but that to him. And even now, after the past hard days, it was still shaping up to be the same. "I see," Aleutian seeped from his lips like pouring acid.

"I'm afraid not, _Young Guardian_." Archimedes did his best to match Aleutian's stance, and boiling stare, and actually succeeded when the echidna shifted his stance. "Don't think you can see the forest from the trees, lad. You've hardly even glimpsed with your walk-ah-bout through it thus far."

Turning slightly, the fire-ant gave his attuned stare at the com-bots. "Do any of these machines look missing?"

Rouge replied, finding that someone needed to cut the straining tension. "From what I can see, I don't think any thing down here has moved for eons."

Archimedes returned with silence.

Somewhere, Espio had gained his mortal life back and had slipped beside Rouge and Aleutian, his eyes still looking as if there were going to fall between his horn and into an abyss. He then stepped around them, grabbing the girl's hand from underneath the sheet and began to look at the bundles of wires, and clear tubes and cords that punctured under her green skin. Taking the cords' with his hand, he followed their path, stepping around the bed and near to Shadow, who stood by the device like a lone guard, watching Espio like a concerned scientist studying a hapless creature in a new environment as the chameleon gawked at the machine he'd stopped in front of.

Aleutian swallowed his boiling rage, with it, his long painful memories. Espio was reminding him of himself from two years ago. "We found another Chameleon upstairs. He was already dead, according Shadow."

Espio's eyes slanted to the black furred hedgehog, then drifted along with his head to Aleutian, resting his stare on Archimedes. "But, those two vitals we saw looked well? All except for that one line that read _nero_."

"He was brain-dead, Espio," came Shadow's low voice, devoid of anything of humility.

The chameleon returned his stunned gaze to the girl on the gurney. Again, his eyes traced the lines that went from her hand, under the bed, and to the machine. "Was the other one _butchered_ like this?" Espio spit out in a thundering voice of rage. "Did he have these needles and wires piercing his skin?"

Aleutian felt the wind get kicked out of him; that was how his voice wafted from him:

"Yeah."

"But," festered Rouge, seemingly the only person possessing some kind of life, "you said something about brain-dead, and that a nero-something was flat-line. What 'bout her?"

Shadow's chest rose as he inhaled a lung full of dry, cold air. "She's in some kind of shallow coma from what I can indicate on the terminal. However, her blood is very low."

"What do you mean _low_?" said Aleutian, crossing his arms. "She's alive and barely breathing. And her skin seems to have good tone," he added, waving his right hand at the lying girl.

Espio shook his head. "No. You couldn't tell even by her pigmentation that she has low iron. We chameleon's keep are skin pigmentation easier than the Overlander's, or even other reptilian Mobian's in very cold temperatures, or even in the baking sun." He turned his head to Shadow, then to the machine. "But..."

His voice trailed as his thoughts consumed him. And before he could put any pieces together, he sighed. "But if Shadow is right, and her blood is low, then it means they are taking it from here."

"And the coma stasis is to do what?" Rouge asked, her voice leveling with frustration as pieces began to connect, "Keep her living just barely enough to keep her as a table top fixture?"

Espio's stare mauled out his realization, and possibly everyone elses. "Yes...they are farming them for their blood."

His head snapped around to the com-bots. For the period that seemed to elapse with Espio's words ringing through the understructure, only the low hum of pumps and groans of machines echoed the foreboding premonition that Espio alone was dwelling over.

"Has anyone of you fought against a com-bot before?" the chameleon asked with a suddenness that startled Aleutian.

Silence elapsed in reply from them. Espio took it as his answer. "I have when they first came out; when Robotnick put them in play for the first time. They have a neat little trick that I thought it was only my kind who could do it. I saw them blend into the backdrop and disappear. You couldn't see them. But _I_ could hear them. It was the only way I could defeat them, even with myself cloaked."

"You're not saying?" Aleutian suggested, shifting his weight mostly on his left leg. He was searching the stares, wondering if he wasn't thinking of the same thing. But Espio's look that fell to the two large canisters at the foot of the machine said it all. "Okay, better educate me on how those things disappear."

Espio sighed while closing his eyes. "It was a chemical that robotnick had refined. He was shipping it from over around Mercia, and I think beyond that part of the world. I'm not to sure anymore. But, the chemical was injected throughout the armor and then it was charged by the bots own internal power system. And from there, it made the bot transparent. Only a good keen eye, or a good set of thermal imaging goggles could pick the thing out." He shrugged his shoulder. "Heck, that is how you have to find _me_. But I can do it just by thought. In fact, I can go transparent like the com-bots are designed to do. But I only duplicate the colors that way."

A furrowed, pensive brow. "Yeah, but Mercia is under his rule," Aleutian said, his mind conquering his emotions for the moment. "He could easily get it shipped in." Again, his hand shot to the chameleon girl. "So why would he need to do _this_?"

"Because, lad," Archimedes said with a voice that struck Aleutian's warrior soul with a foreboding disposition of fear, "Eggman ordered this facility to scrap the whole line, due to a shipment getting sunk by a certain ole Dingo..." Archimedes turned his face to Aleutian, giving him a proud smile, "...and with some help from a boy he plucked from the sea."

Aleutian's heart sank. "That can't be," he protested, dropping his arms.

"Aye, mate."

"It's in the data banks," Espio followed on. "This facility was suppose to receive some sort of shipment, but said it was intercepted. Then two days later came the order to terminate the project." Turning to Aleutian, Espio tightened his jaw in sureness. "It didn't say what the shipment was for...but it all makes a little since now." For a moment, Espio watched Aleutian breathe his feelings in deeply, taking note of his stiffening arms as his had already done. "This girl and the one from upstair–_my_ kind–are the backup!"

"So again," Archimedes went on with an affronting tone, "do all these metal blokes look to be all here. Nothing _looks_ 'outta place?"

Aleutian threw up his spike-gloved hands, while Rouge shrugged, and Shadow only shifted his stance to look at the line of com-bots.

"I don't know. Everything seems out of place here," Aleutian said. Then his mind gripped his throat. His eyes narrowed sternly, and quizzically at Archimedes on his shoulder. "Why are you asking all this when you said Eggman ordered the whole line to shut-down."

Espio stepped forward, taking the sheet the girl was under with his hands. "Because Snively has ordered these things to penetrate and assassinate Princess Sally and her father."

Rouge let out her reaction faster than Aleutian could. "What?! Him? Eggman's pathetic lackey?"

"It's undeniable," Espio replied, his voice sounding exhaustively, "everything here has his name written all over it."

Aleutian unconsciously balled his fists under his arms. "What makes you think it's _him_, Espee?"

They all could see Espio tugging his lower lip, his eyes fully drawn on the chameleon under the sheet. "Because this feels like two years ago at this moment, Aleutian." His eyes met the Guardian's, finding pain being beamed across the still void between them. "Right now I fell like Sonic. And the girl in front of us is Sally...and she's dead."

Aleutian stiffened his stance, his jaw, his eyes, his voice. "Go on." Under his fur, he wished he didn't ask him to.

Espio wandered his attention to his hand resting on the sheet, catching Shadow in the corner of his eye turning his back to them, facing the machine the girl was virtually plugged into. "Like two years ago it is all being underhanded. It feels like it–"

"It was a clear day today," Aleutian interjected coldly, almost unbelieving. "It wasn't then."

"Does it matter?" Espio shot back, looking at Aleutian with a face as if asking the echidna if he was there. As for Espio he gladly wasn't in Knothole for the whole act, but he did help at the final end. "This is going against what Eggman does. He doesn't send assassins; he likes to make thing go up with a lot of flash and earthquakes." He wandered his face around to Rouge. "You think that Snively isn't capable of this. You need to talk to Geoffrey's wife, and she'll tell you other wise." A returned look to Aleutian. "All the messages, the data, the termination order, and this girl are pointing to Snively. Sally is on their programming, the King–and anyone that get's in the way. They are all ordered to be killed!"

"Was there anyone else?" Aleutian asked hesitantly.

But Espio absently shook his head. "I'm not sure. I only got into that file before we teleported here." He tilted his head, his face tensing with thought. "But it did order them to go to Robotropolis for some sort of reprogramming. It couldn't be for Sonic; Eggman has him on high priority for capture or kill. He would go first."

"He might want the Princess and her father killed just to get to him?" Shadow suggested.

"It's crossed my mind," Espio nodded. "Yet...this feels like two years ago. And Sally is on the list."

Archimedes turned and leaned into Aleutian's vision. "So one more time, young Guardian: Are all of these bots accounted for?"

Aleutian stared off. A feeling of revulsion and burning agony leapt from him to Archimedes, the fire-ant doing his best to wash it all away from himself. It was the only bond he and Aleutian really held together, other than looking after his brother, Thinking of the scars that could have been for Knuckles, he always felt that they both worn them so Knuckles wouldn't. _I'm sorry lad. It doesn't have to be a dreary day, either, for this._

"Aleutian?" he said uneasily, his voice tainted with tension. "Are they all here?"

The Guardian stared on distantly, his tone matched his searching face. "I don't know, Archimedes." A heavy breath filled him, raising his Guardian crescent on his chest.

"_Chhrriiiss....stiia...ann..._"

His eyes widen, his head bringing his struck gapping face down to where he heard the faint, weak voice. He was surprised he even heard it over the ambient noise around him and wondered if the others had heard it too. A quick glance answered his own question. No one had heard a thing, no one had noticed.

Except Shadow. He was looking straight at the girl lying on the gurney between them. And for a moment, Aleutian saw his red eyes peer up to him, making him tighten his face in anger.

"What are you doing?–"

Rouge's gasping voice cut Aleutian off. "Hey, she's moving."

Espio, in a blink, was at the girl's side. Aleutian stood for the most part watching him search for the girl's hand, taking it and felt for a pulse.

"Anything?" came Shadow, concerned. Albeit he still sounded distant in feeling.

Espio held his head down, like listening for his own thoughts for answers. "Very little..."

Aleutian witnessed the girl swallow roughly. He took a step forward, shooting his gaze up to Shadow. He saw in the hedgehog's red eyes that his previous question still lingered, but neither of them spoke, for the girl was trying to. Stopping beside her, he leaned down. And froze. He felt his stomach squeezing inside him. He felt his heart lurch to his chest wall, crushing him beyond his sense of being.

"_Chriissstiiaann_." The girl's voice was strengthening.

And so was Aleutian's own pain. He was waiting for her to call him next.

"What did she say?" asked Rouge. It took a moment before Aleutian realized she was asking him.

"Uh...I think she was saying a name."

Again, he looked to Shadow. He didn't have to say a single syllable.

"I'm bringing her around," said the intent hedgehog, his tone for once sounding defensive.

Archimedes took a step forward on Aleutian's shoulder, nearly slipping if he hadn't hooked a foot on the jacket's epaulette. "Please tell me 'ya know what you are doing, there Shadow?"

Red eyes drew back to the machine's monitor. For a second Aleutian thought he heard him sigh:

"I think I have stopped the injection that's placing her in a coma...but it's vague."

"So how is she coming out so quickly?" asked Espio, looking up for an instant.

"Because I'm reversing the blood flow," Shadow replied, working a few buttons on the console.

Aleutian's eyes fell to the girl, her own on the brink of being unshielded. "Eh, that doesn't sound to healthy."

"Because it isn't," Shadow added with a soft, but firm voice. "If she is to live, my best conclusion is a blood transfusion."

"How long?" Espio jumped in.

Shadow looked to him then the girl without the slightest affection to her plight, or even theirs. "Within the hour, at the most."

Rouge peered at him with eyes that were cursing his feckless attitude. It was a look Aleutian felt as well, knowing it rather close, possibly the closest he ever experienced. Friends' faces started pouring into his psyche–

"So, is it going to kill her if we unplug her and get the heck out of here?" shot Rouge's voice, bouncing around the walls.

The girl groaned in pain, making all eyes fall to her. "_Christian....Christian...please_."

"Within the hour," Shadow replied. Only Aleutian looked to him.

Espio gave a quick nod, searching for stares around the room. "Okay then." He glanced to Rouge, "Help me get these things out of her."

Shadow stepped away from the machine, his back towards the four. "I'll start on the charges, if anyone has forgotten why we're here."

Stiffening his jaw, Aleutian held back his particular knee-jerk remark, wanting to tell Shadow to knock himself out with the same feckless voice that the brooding hedgehog used. With his eyes gravitating to the shallow breathing girl, he wished he had–anything to divert his thoughts. In every intake it seemed to bring poisoned thoughts, like a remorseless cancer of pain that he was wanting to forget. Wanting remission. Deliverance.

"Lad..."

Espio lifted up the girls hand, then, snapping his head over both shoulders. "You see any gauze, bandages...something?!"

The girl let out a thickly moan; Aleutian's skin began to crawl. His sight turning to grey.

"Lad..."

Rouge studied her immediate area; Aleutian watching as if he were one of the obscure pillars in the dark. "Nothing," he heard her reply, her voice tensing. "Any ideas of getting this stuff off of her?"

Jutting to the stainless-steel stand behind him, Espio quickly returned with what Aleutian's eyes could vaguely make out as a towel. "We're 'gonna have to wing it with this for now." The chameleon looked up to Rouge with grave, eager eyes. "Get on this side, Rouge."

"_Lad_!"

Aleutian snapped his over to his right shoulder, locking his eyes to Archimedes' with a flash of cold blood worming though his veins. It sent him back further...deeper. For a instant, he held his breath, only exhaling softly when the fire ant tuned his soft gapping, calling face away, ridding Aleutian–and a good chance Archimedes as well–perhaps the only remembrance they had of each other from the worst nightmare from their lives. A sight Aleutian had only caught briefly, but it echoed the same burning, hypnotic agony like before.

"Lad," Archimedes' breathed with a wink of a shudder, his head looking straight, a lone finger pointing "time we did a headcount on those metal blokes."

He nodded, but not without looking down at the girl again. His body tensing, he asked, "You'll be alright, Espee?"

Espio didn't say a word. He was busy with his own convictions wrestling within him. Aleutian knew the feeling and painfully well.

"He'll be fine, Aleutian," Archimedes assured him. "We need to do our own part, now."

Sighing, straighten himself and looking on at the plexiglass that housed Eggman's instruments of supreme death, Aleutian tugged at his legs to move forward, struggling to bring himself in front of the machines. This was the first time he had seen a full fledged com-bot in the metal flesh. He remembered when Control had briefed him about Robotnick's latest, and most lethal machine to date, reflecting it had been over three years since then. For a time, Control was fairly convinced they were meant to come after her whole operations, not to mention her operatives. But then fast word came back about them really hunting the fastest thing on Mobius.

And now seeing them up close, he instantly saw, their woodland pattern made it clear from the get go, where they were meant to go; straight to the Great Forest. With this, as he stepped closer he concluded that they weren't meant to cloak for long periods of time. Stopping at the foot of the plexiglass, his shoes nearly touching the steal base of it, he was still struck that he couldn't find a shred of weaponry either on them, or for that matter, finding one on rack near by. A quick glance down the row both ways, he saw there wasn't even a rack to speak of except the one they were supported on. At least their eyes were still lifeless. But the feeling that they could come straight to life Aleutian couldn't shake.

"Are we impressed?" Archimedes asked, he too looking over the bots while stealing quick glances to the echidna.

He shrugged, but not one portraying indifference. He looked down the row from right to left, and back across. "They all _look_ here. This place is so dark and vacant, it would be hard to know what is here and what has left."

A shake from Archimedes head. "Aye, lad. And the data we brushed over didn't keep very accurate numbers. Course, I don't think me and Espio, there, got that far down."

"Did their programming give out any times?" Aleutian asked next, his stance shifting some.

Another shake of the fire-ant's head. "Not a bloody thing."

"Or you just didn't dig deep enough," Aleutian added. He searched over his shoulder, seeing how Espio and Rouge's progress was coming. But his eyes only caught Shadow's red trim on his quails from the weak light. The hedgehog was kneeling down at one of the center supporting pillars.

"Okay," Aleutian heard Espio's voice announce. Upon a further turn of his head, the echidna saw him speaking to Rouge as both of their heads were looking down. "Two more. This one is going to be messy."

Aleutian turned his attention back to the com-bot in front of him.

"Eww, gross," retched Rouge.

He wanted to look back but didn't. Instead, he continued tracing the bots with his keening eyes. "Man, these things are built," he remarked, hoping to get something more out of Archimedes. For a moment, the fire-ant only nodded in agreement, wondering if he too was locked on the texture-less face. Aleutian's mind was flipping through the books that he had read from over the years, trying to remember a picture, or even a footnote of what the bot's head reminded him. At first, Aleutian was thinking of steal helmets from three centuries ago, around the time when the first King Acorn was ascending to power. But the shape was very smooth, only leaving a small square-hinged mouth that was a permanent fixture of being lock-jawed shut.

"At least he got rid of those silly spikes on their shoulders," Archimedes said, almost like a critic getting his way. "But I think he went back to the old face."

"Does it matter?" Aleutian retorted evenly.

A shrug. "No, not really. Hmm..." Archimedes looked around them, Aleutian only stealing a glance at him some. "Where're their weapons?"

"What I've been asking myself since seeing these guys."

A muffled grumble. "Hope that's a good thing?"

Looking down the line again, crossing his arms, his mind stirring more, Aleutian asked, "How were the old ones armed?"

Archimedes didn't answer right off. Instead he shifted his body away from Aleutian some, the Guardian returning his attention to him. Behind them, Espio and Rouge were still getting the lines out of the girl; Aleutian could hear them crystal clear:

"The towel's working, alright," Espio said, like breathing in better air.

"Then were is this blood coming from?" Rouge nearly demanded.

A long pause, Aleutian figuring Espio was studying what she meant, until, "Eh, it's soaking through the bottom– wrap it tighter!"

Almost looking back to see if he was going to have to defuse a situation, Archimedes stepped in with a cautioned, lighten voice:

"They were armed mostly with blasters. Heavy ones, I think."

Aleutian turned his head forward, then over to Archimedes, raising his eyes to the line of Combots, following them until the interior lights failed to light the darkness. "So, you think we're right on time?" he mused aloud. He felt his spirt give to some hope. "If they're not geared up now, then they're not ready, right?"

Archimedes kept silent, swallowing, then braced his spirt before he spoke:

"Could they be something more?" He felt Aleutian's stare come upon him. "Something far worse than what _we've_ seen? Not you?"

The Guardian stiffened his jaw, trying hard to subdue his thoughts.

"Maybe they don't need weapons this round?" Archimedes continued on, his head roving at the line of Combots. "We know what their mission is, we know their past, but we don't fully know _them_, lad. What Espio and I did was slice the surface of these blokes...nothing more."

Aleutian stepped closer to the glass barrier, his and Archimedes' reflection appearing as he did. He stared past themselves, focusing on something distant and not of the corporeal world. "No, Archy," he said, merely shaking his head. "They're gonna need something. And if you and Espee are right, and this is Snively, then we know Robotnick is next."

"You mean Eggman," Archimedes corrected, though his tone had more distaste than anything resembling a scolding.

The notion of agreeing with him didn't register. Aleutian was more focused on the machines in front of him. More focused on what was being laid out in front of him. Of all the thoughts that circled his psyche, of the images that plagued him, it were words that rang through and through. _No_. It couldn't be happening again. Not now. Old memories were finding their way back to haunt him. And for what was happening, he didn't really need them to search him out. Instead, life fell at his feet again, and this time, making him wonder if he was going to relive a nightmare.

His nerves felt more alive. His mind more atoned. It was as if any moment some unseen door was going to give way, pouring in Swatbots, aiming their arm-blasters at Rouge, Espio, Shadow. Then at him, to finally finish him off, to end their two year long mission in killing him. And in the darkness, all he would see was that bald, short Overlander, smirking at him–

Aleutian's hand and fingers seized the glass, bracing himself from succumbing to the call of his nightmares. Emi-La's face flashed in his mind, her smile carrying to his heart and strangling it, yet he managed to let her fade from his sight. In her place, Locke's affirming face appeared to him. It was as if he and his father were staring at each other. And for a second, he felt his father's warm hand touch his shoulder, like trying to settle him down from crying. Like telling him he was beside him.

"_Can you see further_..."

His father's question echoed in his mind from yesterday. What was really going on here?

"_I don't know_..._I've never tried_..."

With his own voice lingering, he pressed his hand firmly against the glass, and closed his eyes. It felt as if he had free-fallen down from his own height, watching the tiny cracks of the plexiglass fly passed him. Before his mind could fully grasp where his inner sight had taken him, he was already skimming across the metal floor, his vision blurry for a moment, but now seeing where he was heading towards. And before he could even brace himself for the sensory overload he knew he was going to experience, his sight went dark in an instant, then, like a blink, he felt as if he'd crossed into a room that was illuminated with weaker lights, red and green ones that splashed sculpted steel walls.

Like blinking from awakening in a strange room, Aleutian began to make out the smooth, reflective steel of a hydraulic arm that connected the foot to the bot's knee. In fact, with a twist of his sight, as if standing himself on a hill top of wires–which they were many all around him–he peered up the left leg of the Combot, observing more hydraulic pistons, some collapsed, other extended. Dark hoses also towered up over him, and with a quick jolt of his vision downwards, he realized that they were fuel lines, finding the bundled wires led to the upper base of the small hovering thrusters he was atop of.

Like leaping from a rock-face, he shoot his sight up the leg, guiding across the hydraulic limbs until the red and green LED lights nearly blinded him as he enter the lower torso, and further up, the greater expanse of the chest cavity. It wasn't hard to miss the three large cylinder tanks, standing from head to foot as they may. Two of the cells were coated red, both bestride a single, yet larger cell that was painted green. He dove his vision inside them, crossing them like their aluminum walls didn't exist. Through the voyage his vision never became distorted. And right then his stomach eased from the building anxiety. _Empty_. And for the time, he guessed what cylinders were supposed to hold what: red for fuel; green, perhaps, for the chemical–and now chameleon blood–for the cloaking process.

Aleutian guided his sight clear up the reenforced chest now, finding it very apparent from the cramp confines of the chest compared to the size of the driod, searching out an arm. His vision ran through the assortment of wires, over a hurdle of flex joints, that after a descent down saw their anchor points to a series of more hydraulic arms, six smaller ones encircling a large main piston. They were strong, that was for sure. But he wasn't really interested in their brawn. He saw the connecting point form the upper arm to the forearm, a mass of intrigued plates with something he thought were more flex joints, but were built far cleaner. In fact they looked very different. He glided his sight across them, and with applied concentration, feeling his body for the first time since his vision jumped, he tried like the other day to magnify is inner sight–and it worked, far quicker than he expected. With the smoothness of the well sculpted aluminum layered plats becoming crude and pitted, he followed where they connected and slide through the harden steel beyond.

And straight into an empty, dark chamber. He was expecting to see the inside of the complex from were they where. But his sight was utter darkness, and his conclusion was about as instant: the com-bots were doubled skinned, allowing chambers for the girl's and her brother's blood to pass around, and under the titanium armor. With a little electricity to excite the cells, as Aleutian remembered what Espio described, the bots could disappear, letting whatever was in front of, or behind them, which ever direction the person was looking, pass through them like light through a window.

He floated his vision over the outside of the forearm, stopping as he dove into a lump that bulged from the right forearm. Light pierced through a slit, and there in wait was, its teeth. A large silver blade hidden beneath the skin, ready to present itself from a small ram attached to a motor and rail behind it. Aleutian's stomach lurched, crushing his heart in the process to rock his very being.

Breathing in deeply, he raced his inner-sight back up to the chest wall, hunting for what lay in the left arm. But he went to far in his sudden spike of panic. Shooting up passed the cylinders, further passed twin rows of batteries wedge shoulder to shoulder (yet low enough to give the bot freer range of motion), and behind the batteries, the housing that tucked away the main thruster for flight, he arrived at the neck, seeing at first the ring that rotated the head as a complex gear and a small motor, and it heavily shielded. With curiosity now guiding him, he kept ascending, finding his vision was starting to become snowy with electric static–he was reaching his limits–and arriving at the positronic brain, finding it with aide from the few blinking red lights. He was instantly struck from the complexity of the main processing cavity of the com-bot. The eyes, as he raced to them, were wired to the brain with the same type of bundles that thronged the machine almost entirely. The brain itself was littered with heat sinks and small, yet powerful fans. And was it ever reenforced. Too bad his skull wasn't built like this, he thought for a split second, seeing this as the envy of any Mobian or Overlander; a thick cranium to take unbelievable damage to the head.

But, something looked even out of place here. He went back to the eyes: they were really nothing but wires connecting from the irises to the positronic brain. With another strain from his forehead, his brow furrowing, he launched his sight to the eye itself...and went straight through it. His vision opened up to the large underground complex, seeing himself with Archimedes still standing on his jacket shoulder.

And Shadow walking up behind him:

"We're done here."

The hedgehog's seemingly soulless voice carried to Aleutian, breaking the echidna from his visual leap. His sight was instant in its change, and it nearly made him queasy. Taking in a long pull of air, he turned his head over to his left, seeing Shadow was staring at the com-bots.

"That fast?" Aleutian said skeptically.

The hedgehog waved his head. "We'll be lucky if these charges can do the job."

Aleutian turned his head away, looking off from the machines as well. "I saw fuel cells in these things. They've got jump and flight capability–"

"I found the storage tanks toward the east part of the complex in a different section," Shadow said without further input from Aleutian. He even sounded as if he wasn't going to be taken for a brainless creature.

"The last three," he went on, pausing for Aleutian's attention, which he only got as a nod, "are on three of the most potential supporting columns I calculated might be able to bring the building down on itself.

Hurried footsteps killed any other questions from Shadow or Aleutian.

"We need to go," came Espio. Looking over to him, Aleutian saw he held the limp girl in his arms, her body wrapped in the sheet, her head resting on his biceps. Rouge was beside him, holding the girl's hand with the blood soaked towel.

"I heard everything is set," Rouge said, her voice filled with anxiety.

Espio eyed Shadow. "When are the charges set to go off?"

"As soon as we're gone."

Taking the low monotone answer for what it was worth, Archimedes stepped to the edge of Aleutian's shoulder:

"Then gather around for a ticket 'outta here."

And they did. All Aleutian saw before the purple smoke took his sight were the uncomfortable stares–

* * *

Locke nearly jolted himself into a solid defensive stance when the teleporting smoke erupted beside him. It wasn't easy even for this seasoned Guardian to lay and wait, watching the roving Eggbots make their sweeps around the compound. He had been hunching low behind the same downed log that he and Aleutian had found Espio laying behind. Now with the smoke dissipating, his body relaxing some, he was confronted with worried faces; Aleutian instantly scanning the immediate area; Rouge stepping low and carefully over to where Locke was now leveling from; Shadow never flinching a muscle to move.

But Espio was lumbering forward with a lifeless creature lying in his arms.

"What happened?" Locke partly demanded under a disciplined voice.

Espio marched forward, his stare on a whole different plain of haste. "We need to get back to Knothole––fast!"

Seeing the chameleon girl clearly now, Locke began to fester his same question, "What–"

"Dad!?" Aleutian stepped to his side, gripping his shoulder, closing to his ear; Archimedes was looking out on the young Guardian's shoulder toward the compound. "You need to teleport us back at full flank."

A shake of the elder echidna's toning face. "Not with this many and at that distance, son. And not without channeling the chaos powers that can certainly bring attention right here."

Archimedes was quick to respond:

"Warp ring, Locke. We have no time."

Still holding his father's shoulder, Aleutian turned to Shadow, who was staring out at the compound, his arms crossed, his posture oddly erect. "Hey, how long did you set those charges for?"

"Short–"

The ground heaved at their feet; the air crushing with tremendous pressure and sound; within the short second, the east side of the complex's roof poured out with belching fire, delivering flying concrete inside the fence line. Then the satellite dish sunk into the exploding inferno mass. With it the center of the compound, its walls and roof crumbling inwards like water through an open fissure, almost kinetically. For the short ten seconds of show, it all ceased almost instantly as it began, unfortunately leaving the west end almost untouched, the walls looking like they were cut through with an ice-cream scoop, the solid roof flexing inwards and down from the middle.

With a calm grumble, Locke rose his hand in the air, and crushing his fist, he slammed it down with hardly any effort. The last section fought, but then fell inside itself. Fire, dust and the sounds of tumbling rubble and the brewing fire birthed a new brutal life to the valley, as well as on looking Mobians.

Reaching into the pocket of his battle robe, Locke found the small warp-ring. "How long does she have," he asked, taking the ring out and eyeing it, not even remotely interested in burning complex.

"Its not _her_ we're worried about," Archimedes said.

Locke only questioned with a side glance to the ant on his son's shoulder.

"Can you put us on the outskirts?" Aleutian jutted acerbically, trading a hardening stare to Locke's widening eyes, though his body watching the flames lick the air.

A nod came after a still expression from his father, and with a turn, Locke flicked the ring from his thumb. It quickly expanded out with its low, waving call that Aleutian was still getting used to hearing. Seemingly on impact, he and his father nearly squinted when waning, however strong sunlight poured through the golden ring that was now a hundred times it originating size. Then their eyes adjusted upon the tall timbers of the Great Forest.

"Let's go," came Locke's strong voice. And he stepped through.

Aleutian was quick behind, turning his head away from the stunning optical illusion of a sun-setting day in the Great Forest to stare at Shadow, Espio, and then Rouge coming out from the darkness of the heavily wooded Badlands, saved for the burning fire of the collapsed, and hopefully totally destroyed complex.

Locke walked up beside him. Ounce Rouge had passed through it, he lifted his hand out, and the ring compressed to its original three-quarter inch size into his palm.

"We might've been on time," Shadow observed, standing forward from everyone else. "It's still relatively daylight. My best logic tells me they wouldn't be active until sundown. "

"What does he mean?" Locke asked firmly.

Espio stepped forward, the girl giving a tiny whimper from his arms. "Sally and her father could be in real danger, Guardian."

"Yeah," Rouge festered, walking toward the side of Shadow, "but brooding, there, might have a point." Sauntering, she didn't stop moving.

Aleutian clinched his teeth in agitation, but turned to his father:

"Dad–" His father faced him, his grey beard adding to his cooling stare. "–Dad, we found com-bots in the basement."

Archimedes stepped out from Aleutian's head-spines. "Aye, mate," he added, giving Locke no time to dispute his son, "and they were programmed to hunt Sally and King Maximilian."

The elder Guardian nearly stepped back with bewilderment, his old friend's face flashing before his eyes, seeing him being stalked by those giant machines he knew far too well. Angel Island was littered with them once Eggman had a good footing on his treasured land.

"But Shadow said we might have been early?" he objected, his voice still sounding concerned.

Espio stepped in. "Maybe so, but this girl needs to see Quake at any rate."

Looking at the chameleon with quizzical eyes, Locke lifted them to his son.

"They were draining her," Aleutian answered his father's coming question, "and another chameleon, a boy. They were taking their blood, dad, and using it to generated their cloaking sequences."

"Like the old models," Locke concluded.

Archimedes nodded. "Aye–"

"_AAEEHhhh_–!"

Aleutian bolted for the scream the instant it hit his ears, passing Shadow as the hedgehog began to take his first foot falls. Checking his shoulder, Archimedes wasn't there with him. But he ran on, facing forward, trying to target where he heard the feminine shrill.

And Aleutian saw Rouge pick herself up hastily from the grass, turned and started running towards him, her face never turning to him. He nearly got himself stopped when she slammed into his chest. Her wings were flexing as she breathed in as her tears rained down her face. "Oh my goddess," she expelled with a very shaken voice, one Aleutian has never heard from her.

Lifting his head up he saw why she was trembling, burring her face into his birthright–

"Dad!" he hollered, taking Rouge with his gentle, flexing hands and moved her to his side. From there he scrambled towards a large pine tree...and found a brown, small lump lying on the grass. She was little girl, a ground squirrel, her yellow dress assaulting his emotions. And she wasn't moving.

"Ah!" He stumbled backwards, his eyes straining, working to push back tears.

Locke stopped beside him, and without hesitation went and knelt down beside the lifeless girl. Gently with his mitted hands, he felt for the girl's pulse on her throat. To his sickening surprise, her head moved too freely, making him jerk his hands back, It all jarred his heart.

"Her neck is broke," Locke said with a cutting voice of anger. Raising his head, he looked to his son with caring, yet tempered eyes. "She still warm, though."

Aleutian swallowed, looking at his father with the same tempered eyes before looking off to the whisking sun.

Espio's voice slipped from behind them. "Aleutian–Locke, over here!"

Taking in a deep breath, Aleutian followed the chameleon's voice, finding Espio standing in a small clearing. Running towards him, he stopped when his eyes descried deep impressions in the grass and exposed soil. Footprints; large, deep, and in pairs.

"We're late," Espio gritted, his face becoming hard.

"Not if we hurry," Locke said with a resounding voice, coming up behind them.

"We need to get to St. John," came Aleutian's commanding voice. "He needs to be warned."

He turned to Shadow. "Can you?"

The hedgehog nodded, not letting an ounce emotion slip from his deadpan face.

Looking next to Archimedes on his father's shoulder, Aleutian swallowed hard, his soul beating his resolve to awake. "Get Espio and Rouge to the Quake. Teleport them there."

"No problem, lad," the fire-ant affirmed, tipping his hat. With a lasting stare, he said, "Go find 'em. Do what needs to be done."

And he disappeared off of Locke's shoulder, leaving the two Guardians reaching across the short void between them with growing, atoning stares. He wanted to say something to Locke, wanted to ask him if he was doing the right thing, but his mind was paralyzed. It was already made up. And as he turned to run towards Knothole, his soul cried up to him, shouting to him, warming his very being. With Locke close behind, he let it speak out. He needed him.

_Knuckles!_

* * *

"So what are we going to do later tonight?"

The question lingered in the air between them. For her, the front palace doors were nothing more than large tables, cleared for a feast she could only imagine in the mean time, making her hunger worse. The problem was, what she wanted. As she rolled the spear around her the palm of her sweaty left hand, her stomach began to draw up menus to her, some so far fetched even for the brown fox that she couldn't believe she was starting to crave for it.

"A salad?" she suggested to the tall, male beaver three paces beside her.

He too rolled a spear in his right hand, but not eyeing her, for she couldn't even steal a glance to him either. If the commander so much even saw them talking while on duty, their career outcomes would be a simple list of push-ups, demotion, or a permeant relieve of duties. Course, they both knew–and so did most of Knothole–that Geoffrey St. John couldn't spare a single fighting hand to the unemployment line.

And with this conclusion hot on the beaver's mind:

"You're nuts, Beth," he festered to her. "I want steak tonight."

She gave a heavy, demeaning sigh at him. Did all muscular men run on large slabs of meat? "That's all you want, John; steak! Steak with potatoes, steak with seafood–"

"Steak with salad," he cut in with Beth's rhythm, adding it with a suggestive wink in his voice. It wasn't that they were together romantically. But they both knew friendship kept them from being alone in a battlefield if and when St. John decided it was time to clean up some out of line acts.

So Beth shook her short dark haired head. "Okay," she said tartly. "Steak it is again.

John merely shrugged his shoulders. "Hey, I'm not forcing you–"

"But the smell, John–It just eats me alive and I can't help myself but to join in with you, and the rest of the watch."

Smiling for a moment, she gave a small chuckle. And for an instant she felt a warm wave come over her. With the sun behind them, shining on the rear of Castle Acorn, it felt like it was an uplifting feeling for her. But it felt confined to her, it didn't wrap around her. Was this ever odd, she thought. It was akin to having someone standing directly in front of her. But green grounds were only present–

"Did you hear something?" John snapped in a crude whisper.

Beth turned her face to him. "Hear what?" she asked, finding her spear was becoming light in her hand.

And suddenly it leapt out from her hold. She faced forward, her right hand falling to the hilt of her sword. But her eyes were paralyzed her movements, transfixed on the floating spear in front of her, hanging like a standing pole, nothing holding it–

Her throat collapsed so hard her vision nearly blanked out. She struggled to breath, but not a molecule of air was let in to her lungs. She gasped, her wind pipe collapsing, causing her to groan in panic. Beth then had the worst notion of floating. And to her painful dismay she felt the scruff of her neck brushing and scrapping up against the castle's wall.

A harsh yelp clamored through her ears. Vision fading, she tried to twist her head, wanting to scream the instant her waning sight caught of John. His spit washed with blood, watching it run down his quivering mouth.. But from his stomach gushed his life's elixir from a wound with nothing protruding from it.

And a revulsion of pain split her body, giving definition between her lower stomach and her chest. Her head was forced forward. Her eyes briefly seeing the sight of her own spear lodged through her...just as the phantom iron grip around her lower jaw and throat continued to twist her head until it–

* * *

The breaking slam of the wooden door startled the only occupant in the large hut the Chaotix called home. To Aleutian's dismay–and her's–no one else was there. But the widened eyes of a finely dressed bee had locked to his, addressing him with the coming stunned disbelief he could see running through her eyes. His aviator jacket was open, and Aleutian knew she was staring at his guardian birthmark. But the scares on his face and chest, his half dread-lock, and even the jacket were all perplexing her.

"Knuckles?"

"Where is he?" the marching, nearly running, echidna demanded. "Where's my brother?"

She stammered for a reply, but he kept moving past her, the couch and continued out of the living room.

Locke appeared through the door and hot on Aleutian's heels. "Saffron," he said instantly upon entering. A quick look around the hut made him scowl. "Where're the Chaotix."

Saffron just froze in front of him.

"Knuckles!" shouted Aleutian, quickening his pace to his brother's room, finding the door was closed as he neared. "Knuckles! Julie-Su!" He closed his hand around the handle, finding it locked.

_Oh, don't let me catch you two!_

His foreboding voice died when he forced open the door with his shoulder, breaking the locking mechanism, and pushing out chunks of wood from the passageway wall. And Aleutian stood in utter disbelief. The bed was nicely made, the dresser closed, the mirror reflecting the adjacent wall the door was obscuring. The room was empty!

He darted away, stopping when Locke approached him with the young bee in tow. "Where's my brother?" he asked her with a calmer voice. "Where's Knuckles?"

A slammed her eyes shut, her chin dipping with distress. "On–on a mission."

Locke's eyes glared widely, somehow staying calmer than his son. "And the Chaotix, Saffron?"

Her head trembled as she struggled to answer. "They're wi–with Julie-Su, rescuing survivors from the–um--Hawkinge."

"What's happened with the Hawkinge?" Aleutian asked next in a raising voice.

Saffron clinched at her dress, holding her emotions back. Locke saw this and placed his hands around her shoulders, lowering to a knee. "Saffron, we need to know this right away. Okay?" She nodded her head, but Aleutian could see the tears starting to churn from her large eyes. "Good. Now, from the beginning, where is Knuckles?"

Her antennas lowered, as with her cringing face. She spoke deliberately slow:

"He is with Sonic and Antoine, tracing down a cipher out in the Great Plaines."

Aleutian rolled his eyes. "Ah, great!" Exhaling his coming rage, he stormed inside his brother's room.

Locke kept his calming tone, though. "And the Chaotix. Why are they searching for survivors from the Hawkinge?"

Aleutian heard her swallow again while he let his attention wander around the room. Anything to calm his mind.

"St. John got a message from them, asking for help."

"We're they sunk," Aleutian asked from the room.

Her voice was mild now. "They think so...something about Mercia."

Locke lowered his beared face closer to hers, trying a smile. "Any word back from them? Any at all, Saffron?"

She shook her head. "Not that I know of."

Aleutian stepped through the doorway. "And Knuckles? Any word from them?"

A confident nod this time. "Yes. They needed the _Turbo Lifter_ to help them free some Mobians somewhere. St. John's wife, Rotor, and a handful of the Guard went to help."

Rubbing her cheek with his thumb, Locke gave Saffron a smile to comfort her. "Good. Thanks your Highness. You did real good for us."

Standing up he looked to Aleutian. "We need to go find Prower and his boy. Tails might have something to–"

Looking up to Locke with guilt filled eyes, Saffron said, "They're gone too, along with Merlin."

"What?" stammered Locke, perplexed.

Watching his father again lower himself down to Saffron's level, Aleutian back-stepped inside his brother's room. He turned his body away from the scene, letting his eyes search the articles inside, keeping his ear out for his father's and Saffron's words.

"They were asked by King Elias to go look for something," Saffron explained, Aleutian merely turning his head.

"Did you know what for?" his father asked.

Waiting for the reply, Aleutian's eyes fell to the foot of the bed. He tilted his head, felt his right eye squint with the black object he saw tucked away under the frame.

"No, Locke, I don't." Aleutian heard Saffron sniffed her tears in. "What's going on? Why are you two so angry."

"We're not, Saffron. There is something bad going on that we need to figure out what to do with."

Reaching down, he saw it was his duffle bag, the one he took with him from his house. He pulled it out from under the bed. And with the bag, a wooden box dragged by the strap. His heart nearly stopped dead when his blue eyes froze to it. He breathed in, his chest rising, his soul never letting go of its hold to his psyche. He could feel his conscience fighting within him not to do it. But he did anyways; he picked up the box...and opened it. The black, smooth metal slide of his hush-puppy haunted him.

Grunting out his apprehension, his anger, Aleutian grabbed his bag and unzipped it. He felt like he was looking into a black abyss. His gear was crumbled to together, but clearly identifiable of what was what. They were like tools to a carpenter, and he that man, his careful mind probing which instrument he was going to need. What he could use.

And his eyes took him back to his pistol. Inhaling deeply, his own eyes feeling as if they were to tear up from what was plaguing his soul, internally watching the images of outcomes running through his mind, his own questions rearing to be answered...he picked his pistol out from its resting place, and placed his hand over the top of the slide.

* * *

_SShhieek!_

The sound was unmistakable to Locke. It reined in his ears to have him slowing climb to his heavy boots. It was metal against metal, elements sliding against each other that ended their trek with a short hollow ring. And it came from the same room where his son was in.

_What are you doing, Aleutian?_

"Locke? Guardian? Did you hear me?"

Locke looked down and felt as if he were blessing Saffron's soul. He kneeled down to her eye level again, whipping away the tears from frustrated her face. He wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault that the people they really need, the family they all wanted, were off doing what was asked of them. But it still didn't make him feel better. "Okay, Saffron," he said, whipping another tear away, "tell me again where Princess Sally is?"

She choked back her sobs for a single moment to answer him, "In Castle Acorn, Locke."

As he nodded for her, he heard velcro being ripped open then a brief moment later, slapped back onto itself. "Are there guards?" he asked amidst what he heard in the other room.

"Just what is usually there."

Aleutian marched through the doorway, Locke looking up in the moment, seeing his son's jacket was off him while his left hand was tugging with a black piece of web gear, strapping it to his right wrist.

"That's not going to be enough," Aleutian remarked, looking straight to his father. "These things are hunting in pairs, dad. They working more efficiently this way. And with their vanishing trick, they'd kill like ghosts."

A furrowed brow from Locke. "Would they split up, Aleutian?"

His son shook his head, giving a hard tug to the last strap, locking it down further up his forearm. "If I had that capability, and I had a partner like that, possibility, yeah."

Before Locke could ask him more–before he could even see his thoughts–Aleutian darted back into the room. And once he disappeared, Saffron immediately tugged at his hand.

"Locke, are we in danger?"

He shook his head, giving the best smile he could manage. "No, not here, Saffron. What ever happens, you stay right here. Okay?"

She nodded, looking around the hut. "Are you sure?"

Coming through the door again, Aleutian looked to Saffron. Locke saw him holding a magazine in his left hand for a split second–he remembered very clearly from three days past, still seeing Lopper holding the thing. Then it disappeared into the pouch his son attached to his wrist.

"Is King Maximilian there as well?" asked Aleutian, giving a hard tug on the flap to secure the magazine.

Saffron, Locke could see in the corner of his eye, was looking up to him in bewilderment. "Yes, sir."

Turning around, Aleutian stepped back into the room. "Don't call me sir, Milady."

And from there Locke held his silence, still kneeling down to Saffron, she too laying silent. Locke could hear her breathing.

"Aleutian," he called steadily.

More sounds of metal and steel connecting with each other ringed–Locke sure he was hearing something being rotated on with metallic threads.

"Aleutian?" he called again, his tone deepening.

Through the door his son emerged....his right hand holding his black pistol at his side–The same one that Locke saw as the demon that tried to take his son's life away from him three days ago. But this time it possessed a longer barrel, with a girth that could swallow the exposed barrel, seeing as he looked further up the pistol hovering down by his son's thigh the slide was locked back, revealing rounded cartridges nestled in the magazine.

"What are you doing, Aleutian?"

His son let a grimace form on his face. "What needs to be done, father."

"Not like this...Not like this Aleutian–"

He looked up to Locke's pleading eyes, Aleutian's own doing the same. "I'm not letting this happen again, dad!"

Locke could see the tears welling in his sons eyes. But he couldn't let him go down the road ahead. Not this time when he was so close to having him back.

"Aleutian, think of what we've done. Think of what you've achieved. You've done so much for yourself–for me, Aleutian. We have the ability to save Sally and her father. We are Guardian's, Aleutian."

And he nodded with that. "I know, father," Aleutian breathed, his stare continuing down to the weapon in his hand. "But, I'm not ready yet."

"You _are_, son!"

"No!" Aleutian barked back. "Dad, I'm not confident with all you've taught me...I'm not confident to save people with it." He rolled the pistol in his hand, still looking on at his father. "But I can with this." His stare molded to a hint of sorrow, of shame. "It's what I still know..."

Locke stepped forward to his son, staring into his eyes, searching for what he was afraid was the undoing of the past three days. "It's not _our_ way."

He didn't sense it; the coldness...he didn't feel it as he peered into his son's heart. But there was searing pain, it carrying burdens, flashes of light. And to Locke's yearning soul for his son's, he knew what he had connected to; what Aleutian was playing through his mind:

The room was dark, yet, a candle flicker weakly in the distance. But nonetheless the image was now as clear as day to him. Faces looked on. And steadily they became more defined. A tall, male dingo, his age showing from greying fur and his stance, his eyes looking on with something akin to disappointment, filled with sadness; a squirrel stood beside him, her mouth opened in disbelief. And standing next to a book case, he swore he saw Anthair! The old Guardian was hunched over his tattered cane, his face inscribed with his usual deadpan fixture. But Locke thought he saw disbelief etched with it. It just couldn't be his Great Grandfather! Not there–

Standing against the candle's shadow, Locke–and seeing his son was doing the same in his past– gazed down the cold blue and green eyes of a lop-eared rabbit, his face embitter, his hands reaching as if trying to save someone.

"Dad," Aleutian said softly, both he and his father still locked with their searching stares, their beings back in the present. "Dad...I swear to you, on my equal's grave...and on my unborn child..." His voice began to crack, his hand stiffening around the pistol's grip, his eyes watering. "I swear, dad, I will never use this in anger.

"Ever."

With his voice becoming steadfast in his resolve, Aleutian stood before his father as he had with Mathias and Faith and Lopper...and with his Great Grandfather, staring coldly with his pistol at his side, his scares fresh and bleeding across his face from that night. It had been two years since then. But now his father was here, standing in front of him. Somewhere he hoped now it was going to be different this time. He hoped this was the end of his nightmares. For the monster that consumed him wasn't here. But_ he _was here; Aleutian felt himself this time. And this time there was no vengeance. This time there was purpose.

He pushed his thumb down on the slide lock, and like two years ago, the spring pushed it forward to capture the first round from the magazine, closing it into the chamber where it lay in wait with the dark...

* * *

I really do hope I gave you all your fill with this: action, excitement, some comedy. Shadow was fun, yet hard to write in this. Really it was his lack of feeling and emotions I had the most trouble drawing up; largely due to finding the right words and phrases to use. I've got ideas for him in the next project, but not as big as I have him now. My character count is high, so it's time to condense.

Aleutian's interaction with Rouge was especially hard. I'm running with something between them, but doing my best not to make it Mary-Sue. Then there is Aleutian...I'm trying to keep his mental health about the same with this. Rouge is playing the role for him to be a little freer with his emotions and heart, but still trying to constrict it. Again, hard.

Espio's role in this was the real key, but I felt I didn't use him more than I wanted to, or would have liked. I know I could have had him more in the spotlight, and I did try. But the focus with Aleutian was getting him to own up to what he used to do, and be. Shadow played out as something he could have been, possibly far worse. I hope I put that well in this chapter.

Again, thanks for reading. And thanks for hanging on between my long absence.


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